In honour of the Dr. Kevorkian of goldfish

Mr. McMichael and I went out to brunch this morning at a kitschy little place in one of my favourite Seattle neighbourhoods. We wound our way to the back dining area where there happens to be a random floor-to-ceiling fish tank in the middle of the room. As we sat there eating, we wondered about what life in a fish tank would be like, which then got us talking about childhood pet fish.

He talked about the one and only goldfish he ever had. He won it at a school carnival type thing, like we all have done, for doing something extraordinary like throwing a ping pong ball into a bowl, or picking up a rubber duckie with the lucky number on it. I pictured him walking home with his little goldfish in a plastic baggie, only to have it die a week later, like carnival goldfish are wont to do.

Then I told him about the first pet I ever had, pretty much the only pet I ever had, Skipper. (Okay, in total, we had 4 goldfish throughout my childhood and adolescence. And that's it. Those are the only pets I have ever had in my life--my whole entire life. We got them in pairs, Skipper and Pee Wee were first, and Ritchie and Donna came 5 or 6 years later. Yes, Ritchie and Donna, inspired by the movie, La Bamba). Skipper was a good fish, and I loved him. Like Mr. McMichael's pet fish, he was a carnival prize, but was of especially hearty stock. He lived for two years, which in carnival goldfish years has to be like a thousand.

As Skipper reached the end of his time here on Earth, he must have thought to himself that he had seen two (or a thousand) good years from that bowl, and wanted to go out with dignity. Either that, or he had become so mind-numbingly bored of floating around that same bowl for one-freaking-thousand years, that he just. Couldn't. Take. It. Anymore. Whatever his reason, he flopped himself right out of the bowl one night and the following morning, my mom was in kitchen in the dark when something squished beneath her foot. Yes, Skipper. In the event he was suffering for air as he lay there on the cold brown linoleum, she put him out of his misery. I remember being sad. And then I probably went and played with my Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

Sitting at brunch, sipping a bloody mary, this is how I remembered Mom today. Happy Mother's Day. I know you didn't mean to step on Skipper, and I love you.