It’s been a bad day…
… but I took a picture anyway. Okay, that’s actually a picture of my new fish, not of my bad day. (I’m making a little parallel between that new REM song [evil mp3.com link!], and my day today (technically, yesterday.))
But I don’t want to talk about my bad day. So, I was in Wal-mart picking up some oil for my car, but they were all out of what I wanted, so I guess I’ll have to go to one of those oil change places. It was lateish at night and I was bummed out and I was wandering Wal-mart; I picked up some lightbulbs and looked at dremel tools and legos. Why do legos have so many custom, non-interchangable parts nowadays? Defeats the whole purpose. Makes me want to go bust some sense into those little yellow Danish heads at Lego Corp.
I went over to stare at the fish, which makes me feel better; I’ve wanted an aquarium ever since I moved to this state but it’s not a good idea right now because I don’t have anywhere to put one! (Keep telling yourself that John, maybe you can keep yourself from impulsively spending an insane amount of money on a new fish tank. Riiiiight.)
There was a whole family in front of the fishtanks, and they were hauling out a bunch of fish, three bags worth. Who knows what happened to their old fish because they weren’t getting a fish tank. I wasn’t really settling in to watch the fish because these people were there and I was in one of those moods where being around people makes me nervous: can’t watch the fish with people around because I have to spend too much brain power on keeping track of the people and what they’re doing. Have to make sure they’re not staring at me or pointing and laughing at me or something.
They got their fish and left. Mother and five kids of varying ages. (”I want to carry the fish!” “No, I want to carry the fish!” “Relax, we have three bags, everyone can carry their fish.” teenage whisper: “I don’t want to carry the fish… gross.”)
“Do you want anything?”
Awkward moment! But… sure… I could just get a little goldfish! I can keep it in the fish pitcher! (the fish pitcher is an old brita filter pitcher; the foofy white part cracked and became useless so I used it for ferrying water to and from my old fish tank. The fish pitcher never gets used for anything else, it never gets cleaned with soap or bleach.) I already have fish food and I think I have gravel, maybe. Plus, the sales chick was pretty cute. (Yikes! Sorry Peggy, but it’s true! She’s got nothin’ on you though. </SAPPY!>)
Dialogue:
“Do you know what kind you want?”
“Yeah, I want a cool one.”
“Like one of the white ones with the gold spots?”
“Er… maybe, yeah.”
Those ones are kind of cool, but I really wanted this one little tiny light gold one, but I didn’t want to be an asshole and say “yeah, I want THAT ONE FISH RIGHT THERE.” While she was getting all of the little bits ready, she asked
“Is there a certain one you want?”
“Um… yeah, I guess I want one of the little gold ones, like that one there.” I pointed.
Net… plunge swish swish swish chase chase zoom scatter dive down down up up up up down around zoom zing zoom zig zag zoom strike! Oops, two. Carefully detangle rejected fish, decant chosen fish into plastic bag. Twist twist rubber band wrap wrap… and the handoff!
Carefully place fish in cart, which is empty except for a tiny package of 15 watt lightbulbs. And now, a fish.
I don’t know if I got the fish I orginally pointed at or not, but I like it. It’s a little golden one with a white tail (if you didn’t click on the picture of it). 28 cents for a goldfish. They’ll give these things out to anyone, I didn’t need to get on a waiting list or anything. They certainly didn’t call my landlord to make sure I had permission to get a fish! (newfish > Meriska, when it comes to that).
I know it looks like the fish is kinda listless, laying on the bottom of the pitcher a bit. That’s an optical illusion caused by the beveled pitcher edge; [s]he is pretty lively.