 Q: Tiny dog, despite ending the life of his two dun-colored companions in the outdoor container debacle of '05, I hear that you have kept No Name #3 alive now in an indoor tank for three weeks and counting.
A: Thank you, that is correct. At this time, NN#3 has no obvious parasitic infections, missing scales, ammonia burn, or other common signs of imminent fish demise. He may be dying of a broken heart though--that I can't see from the outside.
Q: Tell us what you now know about sea life stewardship after wrecking your skateboard on the learning curve early in the process.
 A: Everything about keeping fish is an act of death management. I advise all land dwelling guardians of aquatic life to obtain a crash course degree in the principles of WECD: Worms, Excrement, Chemicals, and Disease. You will battle the WECD throughout the tenuous life span of your scaled companion and it pays to be armed.
Immediately shelve any dreams you have of teaching your fish to catch a Frisbee, or of braiding his mane with show ribbons. Fish are for people who enjoy water chemical management and tank rinsing, who remain unflinching at the sight of floating carcasses, who like staring at slow moving objects for long periods of time. This qualifies fish as possible ideal pet choices for happily employed sewage treatment technicians and mortuary embalmers.
Q: What is the most idiotic thing you have found yourself doing since bringing NN#3 indoors?
A: Listen to stuttering internet streams of Pet Fish Talk, With your host, Nevin Bailey, to understand the ominous appearance of a red worm in my tank water. After listening to a 10 minute dissertation on whether to feed freeze-dried brine shrimp to Mollies, I learned that I need to stop overfeeding my fish and rinse the tank gravel better. Thanks Nevin: no more worms.
Q: Do fish sleep?
A: Tiny dog has proven definitively that when fish swim behind their tank filters and then become motionless, they are likely to be asleep rather than dead, and one should not test the waters so to speak to determine which by poking said fish with the handle end of the fish net to be sure. Fish are not expressive creatures, but I now know what a surly goldfish looks like.
Q: Tiny dog, research indicates that goldfish are notoriously filthy, and the fish community is unanimous on the contention that one should not keep a goldfish in any less than ten gallons per fish. Rumor has it that your tank is 2.5 gallons.
A: Being that I do not reside at Sea World, my tank is in fact 2.5 gallons. Despite popular myth, goldfish can survive for at least three weeks in a 2.5 gallon tank provided that you change the water at a pace generally incompatible with the avoidance of tedium.
Q: Despite your whining, I suspect you are fond of NN#3, as evidenced by your morning ritual of sitting before his tank with a cup of coffee and asking, "how's your food?"
A: I am descended from a long line of obsessed animal-sympathists, pet-collectors, and people who let small dogs make their daily life decisions. My dad once spent a summer afternoon long ago with a cold-cocked blue jay that had flown at mach speed into our sliding glass door. Dad talked him down and let him rest in a shoe box for a spell, until he had collected himself and was ready to fly away. It is the destiny of my people therefore to sit with goldfish in the morning and discuss with them the palatability of HBH Immune Boosting Formula as a way of saying, "I'm sorry that I killed your friends."
Q: In summary, what would you say is your key takeaway, the one thing you would like to impart to aspiring goldfish owners in the tiny dog audience?
A: Like getting a tattoo at 19, acquiring a goldfish at 33 has pushed me one step closer toward someday becoming the world's least tolerant parent, who is acutely aware of the incredibly low ROI of most everything that children desire. I unhesitatingly suggest that fish are not for idiots, which would include most everyone, most particularly myself. The next fish I purchase will arrive on a conveyor belt, on top of rice, at Marine Polis Sushiland.
That said, I hope you will join me in wishing NN#3 good tidings for survival. At this point, his death would be another of those microscopic things that eventually wreck you, when you add them all up at the end of your days on a giant adding calculator of wrong turns and faux pas, and things you wish you could do over a new and better way*.
*Note to self: This is what happens when you end your rant after midnight while listening to a funereal Dead Can Dance song with a humorless title like Enigma of the Absolute, after drinking Bacardi and "Coca Cola Zero."
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