Fishwich

Right, so I have this fish. Still.

At times I entertain fantasies of setting him free in a certain local watering hole to liberate myself from rummaging in fish excrement every month while I attempt to clean the tank. And yet I know, those glossy corporate koi in there would eat him immediately. He is a feeder fish, after all.

Still, that tank.

Damn thing stopped working today, the tank filter I mean, and the fish drifted in eerily still waters, eyeing me through the slightly warped glass. I know, I know. Without the filter, things get scuzzy and airless in there. You end up with a gasping fish. I remember this from a dark time in the recent past.

"Oh, probably your impeller motility has been compromised," I am informed via phone by Starla, in aquatics. "Try to clean it out." Except that Starla? Our outdoor water spigots all have that foam boob on them, you know the thing that's supposed to keep your pipes from freezing? So I'm out there mucking gelatinous black slime out of the motor housing using a bucket of water carried outside from the kitchen in the failing late afternoon light, in a mist of cold rain, and cursing fish kind.

Within the hour I find myself at the pet store, with my filter in a bucket, surrounded by hundreds of glowing tanks in a big, dark room. This is where it all began; where the cursed three fish first came into my life two years ago. "Oh, the Eclipse 12 motor is indestructible," says an employee with hearty certainty, as he plunges my filter unit into a nearby tank. "You've probably got cat hairs wound around your impeller piston. Happens all the time." He nods with certainty, dashing off to get a new part. All around me, creepy shrimp-beasts and legless water snakes wiggle in their habitats.

I wander over to the goldfish section to look into the big feeder fish tank, and am surprised to see how tiny the pathetic little minnows are; a fraction of one inch, in many cases so small they are sucked into the filter unit at the back of their tank, so only their lifeless tails poke out. They are disposable, of course, these feeder fish. I think of my own fish back at home: impossibly fat and huge, living off the largesse of my guilt, waiting for his refurbished filter.

It's late, and I'm driving home with a slimy but functional tank filter in my trunk. I stop at Macdonald's, something I have literally done less than five times in my entire life. I couldn't tell you exactly what I was doing there tonight.

"Yyyyyellow!" Says the register kid. He's wearing a backwards baseball hat and a skinny 80's tie. A wise ass.

"You guys have an, uh, veggie burger or something?" I say, blinking at the menu. None of it makes sense; fast food I mean. It's all these numbered combo packages with tie in movie poster toy upgrades and booster cola packs. The kid stares.

"No ma'am, but we do have a Filet o Fish."

"Right," I say to the kid. "I'll take the fish."