He'd been pretty sad for a few days, moping around the tank. Cinderella did her best to cheer him up, nibbling his tail and nudging him in an attempt to make him feel better, but to no avail. I came home one day to find him quite dead.
Thankfully he was anchored near the bottom, wedged between a few rocks. I was hoping he'd stay there until after Lou went to bed and my Other Half came home from work so that he could be the bad guy and flush the fish. Unfortunately, Cinderella was still trying to cheer him up so when I looked at the tank a few minutes later she had dislodged him and he was drifting all over, even Lou would know he was was dead. Therefore I would have to be the one to flush him, and quickly, before naptime was over. Here's my dirty little secret: even though I've had a fish for about the last five years, they creep me out. They're fine when they're in the tank, but I hate how the wriggle when I scoop them out to clean... I used to stand outside my dorm room and wait for someone willing to scoop out the fish each week so I could clean the tank. Then when the tank was clean I'd have to wait again for someone willing to put the fish back in.
Anyways, I put on my big girl pants and flushed Pierre. And Cinderella has been lonely ever since. So this morning as I ran errands I stopped by PetsMart to buy her some new friends.
I couldn't figure out where they kept the smaller goldfish. In the rows upon rows of fish the only goldfish I found were the large ones with puffy cheeks, and that's just too much fish for me and our small tank to handle. I finally found someone who appeared to work there and asked where they kept the smaller goldfish. The kid stared blankly for a moment or two before the lightbulb came on.
Oh, they're in the Feeder Tank!
The feeder tank?!? Gross. Remind me to never buy a pet that I have to feed live fish to, not that I'll probably need much reminding. He walked me over to the feeder tank, a veritable clusterfuck of skinny goldfish in various colors and undetermined states of life and death, and told me to pick some out, he'd be back in a minute after he moved some boxes. I had to walk away and check if the tortoise was still around, I couldn't handle all these fish crawling all over eachother. He finally came back and asked if I'd picked any out. Was he kidding? It was impossible to see individual fish in there. I told him I had a lonely goldfish, and could he please just scoop out two that looked reasonably alive.
With suprising disregard for the welfare of the fish, two living goldfish were quickly scooped up and put in a bag. I also decided to get a male betta to put in a flower vase that's been sitting around here for months. I never get flowers anyways, and we've been talking about how it would look cool to have a fish in that vase. 
Yeah, I know I have a collection problem.
On the way home I wondered what Lou would name the new fish. Chances are they'll be named Ariel and Belle, but I wasn't sure what she would name the betta.
Oooooh! Princess Tiana!!! Mom, thank you so much for getting me a Princess Tiana!
Who would've thought that a thirteen cent fish could bring so much joy? I think I'm going to stop buying toys.
The other goldfish is named Princess Belle, and the betta has been named Prince Charming because he's a boy.
I'm not sure how long the fish craze is going to last, hopefully long enough for Lou to be able to scoop them out of their tanks when it's time to clean. Either way, I'm stuck with fish for a while now.
Oh well, it's fun, it's funny to hear the names Lou comes up with, and entertaining to watch.
At least now the cats have a TV.
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