Fish people

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

No, I don’t mean like Aquaman or the Little Mermaid or the Creature from the Black Lagoon (How has no one remade that one yet?).

No, I’m talking about the people who keep and maintain an aquarium in their homes. My daughter thinks we are “fish people,” even though time has proven over and over that it appears we are decidedly not.

She really got into fish when she was about 10 years old. We got her a betta and a little tank for her to decorate and keep it in. That went well enough that she wanted to expand her fishy empire. So, we got her a 10-gallon tank to keep a few fish in, but they just couldn’t stay alive. Even after several uses of the “Petco Guarantee,” we went through several ill-fated fishies before finding three that survived. Then she was “hooked” —

See VIEWPOINT, page A10 VIEWPOINT

From page A4

pun definitely intended.

For her 14th birthday, we got her a 50-gallon tank. She spent a lot of money getting just the right weird mix of decorations and bubblers and such. She had a pretty good set-up… until the ice storm a few years ago knocked out the electricity and all her fish died (maybe we could have somehow taken them with us to my Mom and Dad’s house for the duration, but we didn’t really think of it.

After that tragedy, she somehow convinced us to upgrade to a 70-gallon tank, which was free, so I didn’t really have an argument against it.

But let me tell you, the upkeep on a 70gallon tank is basically a part-time job… which somehow falls to me, since I am the one who simply can’t stand the noise when the water is low and the green film that forms on the rim of the tank after a few days. Oh, and we once again went through a rash of fish deaths — this time before we figured out one of the goldfish was a serial killer (he lives in the pond at Tilden Rodgers Park now. And I am pretty sure, more than ever, that we’re not “fish people”…