In order to help us through the current global economic crisis, and to stave off the mortgage man for another month at least, my wife has recently taken on a job as a waitress at the local restaurant. It’s been taken over by some upmarket types, and my wife and her colleagues are being put through their paces: learning the menu off by heart, as well as the wine and spirits list, and even having to sit a written test at one point.
The majority of her work consists of late afternoon and evening shifts, which means that she drops the kids off at her parents’ house at about five. An hour later, I get home from work, pick them up, take them home, and put them to bed. I then write all evening, Jess (my wife) gets home at about midnight, and we go to bed. The next day, it happens all over again.
The busy lives which we now lead obviously has repercussions elsewhere. When you go from having evenings together to working in separate places, you lose something that you once had. Something has to give.
For us, it’s the cleaning out of our fishtank.
We have cruelly neglected Buzz and Woody, our goldfish, and as a result they swim about forlornly in water which is the colour of porridge and has a consistency to match. That’s if they’re still alive, of course. It’s hard to tell when you can’t see them. We sprinkle food on the water’s surface every day, but have no idea whether or not anything actually eats it.
Every now and then you’ll catch a glimpse of them, emerging from the murky depths to glide past your eyes as you press your nose to the glass, mouthing ‘help…help…help…’. Then, they’re gone, as quickly and as silently as they came, disappearing back into the haze.
When lives change dramatically, and what you were once used to is replaced by something different, something busier, it is inevitable that there will be casualties. For us, it happens to be our gilled friends. Perhaps it would be more humane to go down the euthanasia route. At least I could make it fun, I suppose: I could fashion harpoons out of cocktail sticks and play a game of Moby Dick. Or I could just thrash a pair of scissors in the water and see what happens. Either way it might be better for them, in the long run. Nothing deserves to live in such squalor.
Please don’t ring PETA.
Aah poor little things! I am just glad that you dont have a dog! Maybe you need one of those flashy self cleaning aquariums. It is true that when you are busy there are some things that fall by the wayside and cleaning out the fishtank was never a favourite job of mine! It could be worse; my husband boiled our goldfish alive!
How on earth did he manage to do that?!
it would take about 20 minutes to clean out that thing.
you made a commitment when you got a pet, you should stick to it.
Relax, Dr Dolittle, I’ll get it cleaned out. Right now I have more pressing things to worry about than the fact my fish live in water that is mildly cleaner than the pond water they’re used to.
My goldfish never made it past a week, so I never had to clean them out. They just went for a lovely ‘swim’ down the toilet instead! i hope your survive the murky times and get to see the light at the end of the fish tank again soon!
Imagine how fun that flush would be if they were still alive! Best water slide EVER!
I asked him to clean them out (he’d not done it before) I said refill tank with cooled boiled water but he didn’t hear the cooled bit!! Not very practical my husband, it’s a wonder the children have survived tbh!
FWIW, apparently goldfish need water that looks exaaaaactly like that to breed… so maybe you’re doing Woody and Buzz a favour
[...] gape at him, unable to find any words, just opening and closing my mouth like the Shubunkins who roam the murky depths of the fishtank we keep in the kitchen. That’s when Noah pops up. He’s twenty months old. And he, too, has green felt-tip pen all over [...]