This is a corner of my world where the hokey pokey really is what it's all about! So when life hits you all at once ~ just sit back and enjoy the ride!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

My Best Fish Story

My sister moved about two months to Tennessee. It was nice she waited until about 3 weeks before moving to tell the family~she is an artist~it is all about the drama! Well at her old house she and her husband had a huge goldfish pond they made with blood, sweat, tears and ugly words~lots and lots of ugly words. The pond was beautiful and they did an amazing job. I asked when she moved was she taking her little fish babies with her~Nope! They were going with the house and that was that. Well I told her a dear friend of mine bought and shipped fish all over the country and could help if she changed her mind. Well~sure enough a month passed and she missed her wee ones and knew that No one was tending to the pond like needed as the house hadn't sold and these fish were going to die because no one was caring for them. Again~Do you want me to ask David to help~well no I don't think so. I could tell she ways swaying and didn't want to have anyone help her~because that might make her in debt to them and this we can't have. So....about 2 days later the answer became YES!! Do you think he could fix it where they could ride in a car for about 8 hours. Well ~ David is the bomb! Of course 20 body bags, an oxygen tank, rubber bands and some little blue pills later we could move a horse under water and he survive the trip. Well my sister and her Hubby were having to come this way for a wedding and could she stay for the weekend and oh yes~could I help catch 8 huge fish bag, tag and store them at my house for 48 hours and then bag, tag, and prepare them for their journey to Tennessee. Sure~why not ~what could possibly happen. Well 2 1/2 hours just to catch those slippery sap suckers and then we put them in a 15 gallon container to drive them to my house. One fish in particular had issues from the start. Every time we almost had him he would jump from the net~move briskly~it was almost as if the fish gods were trying to tell us it was not his time to travel. But did we listen~nope we are women~hear us roar! We after a lot of profanity and laughing caught him and put him with the rest of his bother and sister fish. Drove an hour to my house and put them in their weekend estate~my small not built by my hands but adequate fish home aka the dog's large water bowl. Well we being women were proud that we had managed the task at hand and although it took some doing got them the the 1/2 way point.
Well~things went well for about 45 minutes. My son went to go check on the new friends only to discover that the one that we had a hard time catching originally had committed suicide. I told you we should have listened to the great fish gods. Well what do you do~laugh that was all we could do at least 7 of the other guys were still living~can't mourn for the dead just rejoice for the living and hope that they continue you to do so! Well Sunday morning came and it was time to put David's instructions and supplies to good use. We took a huge bag put enough water to cover the fish and then added a little more, added a little blue pill~not that kind but something that helped them reduce the stress of the trip and enjoy the ride~kind of like Prozac for fish~added pure oxygen and then banded the top. This went smoothly for fish 1,fish 2, and fish 3, and then we ran out of pure oxygen. Could this get any funnier oh yeah~David is out of town. CRAP! Now how are we going to do it since I don't know any old folks with an oxygen tank. Well we call David and he tells us we really don't have to have pure oxygen we could just let air into the bag naturally ~it SHOULD work. Well what else could we do. Well we finished packaging fish and got them on their way to Tennessee. Well I could not help but call that night to make sure there were no more casualties. Believe it or not the rest arrived alive to their new home!!Moral of the story~just buy more fish instead of trying to travel with them. You will grow to love your new fish as much as you loved your original fish!

2 comments:

Suburbia said...

OMG I can't believe all that work for 8 fish!! I hope they were very greatful.

Lovely story :)

Liz Hinds said...

That is a great story! I'm laughing as I read. What a job you had. But you couldn't leave the poor things ot die, could you? Apart from the obviously hysterical and suicidal one who would probably have been happier being left in the pond on his own, listening to Leonard Cohen music.