Poor Ish Is Dead

I know. Ish doesn't rhyme with Judd at all but I thought it was clever.

Hey - I haven't slept much in last few days!

Anyway, we came home from Quinn's baptism last night to find Ish gasping his last little fishy breaths. Rob aerated his water. I mashed up some peas and placed them in the water (because I've read in several places that it helps in situations like these). He tried to swim sideways (because he was pretty much belly up already) to get some fish food but I don't think he ever did.

This morning, he was at the bottom of the tank and not moving.

And so passes the great Ish, won at a pre-school carnival, lovingly tended for 2.5 years as he lived in his 1 gal ice cream bucket (really, it was so the opaque plastic would give him privacy - that's what it was! Would you want to live in a glass house?). He will be mourned by my children and by our cat Jenny whom I'm sure is thinking, "Damn, I coulda had a good meal too!"

Is it bad that upon noting his death, my first thought was, "If I flush him down the toilet now, I can put the ice cream bucket on the curb for the recyclers to pick up!" And I did. No sense keeping more trash evidence of his demise around to torment my children.

As a side note, which I will not be confessing to my children, I'm thinking that he died from not being fed. These last few days have been crazy and little things have slipped through the cracks. (And you thought this blog was the only thing I was ignoring!)

Or, as I will tell the children, he was faking his death because, "all drains lead to the ocean." And now he is a free fish swimming in the vast Pacific Ocean. Heck, Nemo's his best friend.

That's the official story anyway and I'm sticking to it.