Death, unlike hell, is not for children

So first we had Wallace the self-de-hairing cat, who by way of self-abusive licking performed the feline equivalent of the endless handwashing stereotypically seen as a hallmark behavior of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in humans. (On the up-side, Wallace can also be used to remove those troublesome fabric nubbins from sweaters -- get your own OCD cat today!) Then Truman the retarded wonderdog went toe-to-toe with some chain link fence and lost. LOST TO FENCING. Oh, the halfwitted humanity.

In summary, it's safe to say we've established that the Sweetney family pets are defective, masochistic rejects. But oh mah lawd, nothing in our recent experience has come close to the epic pathos, drama, and stupidity of this weekend's Aquatic Deathwatch 2007 (sounds much more festive than it actually was, BELIEVE ME).

It began a few days back when I noticed that M's beta fish Nemo was acting, well, sort of listless. “Floaty and deanimated” were the words that came to mind. Instead of his typical acrobatic swirling about in his tank, I discovered him drifting near the surface of the water, leaning lightly against the front wall as if to say: DUDE, I'M FUCKING DYING OVER HERE!1!!!. Usually frenetic and eager at his daily feeding, now the poor little guy's tiny front fins barely twitched when I opened the top of the tank and dropped a few ground-up flakes of food in.

So we all know where this is going: straight down the toilet with a single, decisive flush.

Except it didn't. It hasn't. He's the fucking Energizer Bunny of fish. The Thing That Wouldn't Die of fish. The unstoppable evil zombie fish that can't be killed because ITS ALREADY (UN)DEAD.

Saturday morning I checked in on him and went so far as to call time of death (10:40am, if you must know). You may recall that the last time our family dealt with fish death Jamie and I chose to secretly replace the Original Dead Nemo with a Living Nemo Imposter, basically because we're pussified cowards who'd rather avert our gaze and deceive our child than suck it up and have the dreaded Big Death Talk. But now, with even The Nemo Imposter exiting, we seemed to have little choice. It was time to do some serious motherfucking parenting, yo.

The Talk went something like this:

Jamie: Honey, we have something to tell you.
M: *blink*
Jamie: Nemo was sick, and he died.
M:  WAAAAAAAAAAH! I MISS NEMO!!!!!!!
Me: Its okay sweetie, it happens.
M: (quietly snorfling)
Me: You know... the circle of life and shit.
Jamie: (shoots daggers at my skull)
Me: I MEAN, fish don't live a long time.
M: Can we get another fish?
Jamie: Yes.
M: (inappropriately chipper) OKAY! CAN WE GET IT TODAY?!!?
Me: What, no period of mourning? How about a little respectful time and distance before we move on to callously replacing the dead, huh?
Jamie: (shoots flaming battleaxes at my skull)
Me: Alrighty then. Anyone up for ice cream?

So I think that went well. Except that at the end of this conversation, when I went to scoop Nemo's remains from his tank so that we could do the traditional burial at sea, the sucker MOVED. Moved, as in NOT DEAD YET.

Oh jesus fucking christ.

That was Saturday, and the death vigil continues still. A few times a day now I go in and poke the seemingly dead fish, only to have him spring to life and swim furiously around the tank for a few moments, thereafter drifting back into a limp, corpse-like pose on the surface of the water, as if to give us the finger while gurgling: HA! SUCKERS!

Stupid faker fish.

And I know its wrong, but since he's quite obviously on his way out and sloughing off this mortal coil and all that, I have to admit I kind of wish he'd get on with it already. This endless death rattle mambo is excruciating. WON'T HE THINK OF THE CHILD(REN)? Go to the light Nemo, go to the light...

And now I'm strangely hungry for a tuna melt.

Tags: children, daily, family, humor, kids, life, motherhood, mylife, parenting, pets, death

Comments

[Rebecca]

Oh my god, you are hysterical!

[slouching mom]

Perhaps putting him out of his misery (because he *does* sound miserable) would be the expedient humane thing to do?

[slouching mom]

meant to cross out the 'expedient' -- heh.

[Izzy]

Maybe he's a narcoleptic and those bouts of dead-lookingness are just his "naps."

[Jo]

I just sprayed coffee out my nose from laughing. Thanks, Sweetney!

[sweetney]

slouching mom: i've thought about it but honestly don't have the stomach for it. someone wanna come over and take care of this for me, be my personal fish hitman?

god, i'm a heartless bitch.

[Kelly]

I've had at least two fish pull the exact same routine with me. One even sprang back to life ON HIS WAY DOWN THE TOILET. Oh well. Bygones. I'm not looking forward to going through the same routine with this fish and I'm already way sick of keeping the cat away from him.

[amalah]

Oh my god, I remember watching my mom flush one of my goldfish -- and just like Kelly said, the thing sprang to life and started swimming just when she pulled the handle.

Oh my god, how I screamed and cried and waillllled. And apparently I repressed the memory because it just came back to me now and I feel the need to call my mom and cry some more over Wiggles The Fourth.

[sweetney]

sweetney.com: bringing back your most hideous childhood memories, one post at a time.

it's a gift, really.

[Val S]

Delurking to say I wish my childhood memories of pets dying were half as funny. 'You know... the circle of life and shit. ' HA!

[cursingmama]

it's all really sad (kinda - not so much) till you get to the amazon ads - the it goes all commercial ;)

I wonder how much mileage you can get out of this for posts - death watch day 38?

[Schnozz]

If he's lasting that long, he probably has a swim bladder issue, which isn't actually life-threatening if you do something about it. Just quit feeding him for a while. Betas can make it a long time without food (like, a month, literally, though it probably won't take that long), and he'll straighten right back out.

I'm not a beta expert by any means, but I had a similar experience and discovered the answer when I was Googling things like OH MY GOD WHEN IS THIS FISH JUST GOING TO DIE ALREADY. My husband, who voted to flush him, was racked with horrible guilt when Gill the Fish recovered so nicely.

[All Adither]

Maybe he's reconciling some things. You know, making peace with his past before he succumbs to the nether world.

[Jonathon Morgan]

That's totally what happened with our fish. We have one left, I have no idea how the thing isn't dead. The other two "got sick and went to a place where'd they'd feel better." By which I mean I flushed them down the toilet so their lifeless bodies wouldn't freak me out while I worked.

[Dana]

We have a two-week dead plecostomus (sp? WTF?)in our fishtank still because we're lazy assholes. The kids are all "Watch it rot! Awesome!"

[ozma]

I can just see him as a kind of Terry Schiavo fish and all the little betas going around marching with their signs against you. I'll bet they'll change the law in congress.

I think you truly must do what the poster above said. Don't feed him. Go the whole Terry Schiavo route. See if he asks for a sandwich.

[Kirsten]

Girl, between you and Mz Amalah tonight, I am going to get written up or fired over my reading of blogs at work.

However, my work is done so I'm here in this kind of almost dead fish hang while I wait for the next calllight to go off.

Thank you :)

[Heather B.]

Ok, it is now Tuesday morning, is Nemo still kickin' it? Or did he die gently while whispering 'rosebud'?

[insomniac]

You are too dayum funny! Got ya bookmarked.