The Petsmart Police // Fish Tales

Sometimes in life, you just need something to live for; something to keep you going and to make you excited to jump out of bed every morning.  For the last few weeks, the prospect of getting to have a pet fish to keep at school has been that something for me, and I'm only exaggerating a little.  From the day that my physics teacher threw out the idea,  I've been thinking about the kind of fish I want (the big cheek kind) and carefully choosing a name (Darnell).

  I patiently waited while my teacher found a tank, fixed a crack in it, let it "cure" (which I'm pretty sure was just some kind of test, because I swear that thing cured for weeks), and did the many, many other things that have to happen in order to turn a glass box into a home for fishes.   Many, many, many things.  You don't even know.

So, after weeks of waiting, the tank was finally ready and I had a free evening to head to Petsmart and pick up my new big-cheeked fish, AKA Darnell AKA my new best friend.  I had plans to meet a friend there for a regular fish buying partay, because such a momentous occasion shouldn't be experienced alone.  I was headed out the door, keys in hand, when I received a text. 

 "Ok . . . I have bad news, none of the fish have big cheeks." 

Usually, "None of the fish have big cheeks," wouldn't be incredibly devastating . . . except it was.  I had my heart set on big cheeked Darnell AND HE WASN'T THERE.  So I sat down in the doorway and bawled my eyes out in self-pity and refused to go to Petsmart.  Okay, actually we were eating dinner so we agreed to try again the next day and I stayed home and drowned my misery in garlicky chicken noodle vegetable stuff, which worked pretty well.  

Fast forward 24 hours to the second attempt.  We both made it to Petsmart without any break downs, (okay, that was only really an accomplishment for me) and I got right down to the business of picking out Darnell.  There weren't any huge cheek fish, but I was kind of expecting that so it didn't set me back too far.  I'm assuming that you don't really want to hear about the whole fish-picking process, so I'll just tell you that it's harder than you think because apparently some fish are jerks and like to eat their tank mates, so you can't buy them no matter how pretty they are.  I mean, you don't want all of the other fish owners to hate you.  The bottom line is that I settled on a super cool clear fish and started calling it Darnell and bonding with it.  That was my mistake. 

I had my fish all picked out and couldn't be happier, so we went and found the fish lady and asked her to please scoop Darnell out of his fish prison and send him on his way to a much happier life.  That's when the real trouble started.  The fish lady apparently wasn't parting with Darnell without a fight, because she proceeded to interrogate us.

"How big is the tank?"

"Does it have water in it?"

"Are there any other fish in there?"

"Are you ready to become a fish parent?"

"Have you ever been to jail?"

And I mean I haven't ever even been to jail, but that woman would. not. let. me. buy. THE FISH.  I was all "Can I have that super cool clear one named Darnell down at the end there?" and she was all, "NO because I don't trust you and 10 gallons of water is obviously not big enough for more than one fish are you crazy?"  At which point my memory started to become more clear and I recalled that the tank miiiiight be 20 gallons instead of 10 . . . or were there actually two tanks instead of one?  No matter what I told her, fish lady held her ground.  I mean, Darnell must have been her favorite fish out of the 500+ that she was responsible for, because she was not letting me have him.  And so we bought this buggy eyed black goldfish and I didn't get Darnell and we left.  You guys, it was so disappointing, and now all I can do about it is sit here fishless and pour my heart out.  And also warn you all to never, ever, EVER try to buy a fish from Petsmart.

Love,
Allie