A Fish Tale Gone Wrong

So from the title of this post, you can guess that there is going to be some sort of an unhappy ending somewhere in this post. It all started on Sunday. It was a cold, wet, rainy morning. We had all huddled together and made our way to the church in the Old Country, (oh wait, I'm not Sophia from the Golden Girls, but I did watch that last night!). But I digress, it was cold and rainy and we were in Sunday School when one of my students started talking about her pet fish. I thought nothing of it except that it was cute how animated she was about her little pet. After church Emma-Caroline says, "Mommy, I love you . . ." Yep, I should have known. "Do you think we can get a pet fish?" My wiser self was on vacation for the day so I said, "Sure, we'll go to the pet store after lunch!"

 Immediately after lunch, we all piled in the car and headed to PetSmart.

I had decided we would probably get gold fish since they were pretty easy to care for and fun to watch. We picked out a pair of fish that we liked and an aquarium complete with pink rocks, pink castle and pink plants. We also got fish food, water conditioner, and dechlorinator.

We then headed to our PetSmart Fish Expert to help us with our new family members. She was very nice and informed me that goldfish were not the right choice for the 2 gallon tank we were purchasing.

Since I was not willing to buy a 20 gallon tank to house my 1 inch goldfish,who could be expected to grow to 2 feet (as if!), I asked for an appropriate fish that would live fine in the tank we had chosen.

She steered us to a pair of cardinal tetra which looked like neon tetra to me, but were not according to Fish Expert Lady. The fish were caught and bagged and we received instructions on what to do to set up the tank and transfer our new fish to their home. According to Fish Expert Lady, "Set your tank up, add dechlorinator, let tank set for 1 hour, then transfer your fish letting their original bag set in tank for 30 minutes so their water temperatures are similar." I followed the instructions and everything went off without a hitch. The girls named their fish Rainbow and Julie. They seemed just fine in their tank and liked the fancy pink decor. The girls were thrilled with their new pets. Fast forward to Monday morning. Emma-Caroline wakes up and heads downstairs to see her new fish. I hear, "Hey Mommy, come here, Rainbow is swimming upside down! Isn't that a funny trick?" "GREAT!" I think. "Those fish have already bit the dust."

After inspecting the tank, it was confirmed that Rainbow and Julie were both swimming in the big lake in the sky. Emma-Caroline was devastated. It hurt my heart that she was so upset. So I fished those poor little fish out, placed them in a bag, packed up the aquarium and headed over to PetSmart to tell them we wanted our money back. After another Fish Expert Lady told me, "Well, I wouldn't have recommended them there fish to ya, Them shock easy!," I was issued a full refund and we came home with two new non-fish pets. I will reveal our new family members tomorrow. Until then, I am happy to inform you that we are very happy with our new friends who do not have gills or scales and who do not "shock" easily.