True to the title, my mother really is a fish killer, and the only real pets I've ever had were rocks and fish, leaving me scarred possibly for life.

The trauma began in sixth grade, when we received a new computer and were in the process of setting it up. As all the members of my family crowded around the computer, in awe of the Cicero start up screen (is the company Cicero even still alive?), I went to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. Lo and behold, I discovered that my mother left the hot water tap on while cleaning the fish bowl, and all of our beloved fish were dead, floating at the top, eyes wide open and screaming something along the lines of YOUR FREAKING MOTHER KILLED US.

After that dismal failure -- I think about seven fish died that afternoon -- my mother unsuccessfully tried to manage pet fish, though to no avail, as the only fish that survived the encounter went crazy and started eating the newly purchased replacement fish. Awkward turtle.

Flash forward a good four or five years later, and my mother decides she's going to buy some new fish, and she does, except she's a hardcore immigrant, and doesn't understand the need of an air pump to keep the fish happy, healthy, and - well - alive. So she made the very informed decision of keeping nine fish in a small fish bowl withing anything but a couple of pebbles and some water. Needless to say, they all started dying.

It was at this point that I stepped in and demanded that she purchase an air pump, clearly stating that fish also need oxygen to survive, and that the oxygen level in stagnant water is not infinite. She then took it upon herself to grab a straw and proceeded to blow bubbles into the tank. The next day, another fish died.

After purchasing the air pump (you wouldn't believe how relieved I was when she did so) and feeding the fish every four hours with proper gold fish food (and not leftover bread crumbs), I have to say that the fish were turning out pretty sexy, and they had grown quite a bit too. I genuinely believed that the fish killing days were over.

But, of course, I thought wrong.

This afternoon, my mother went to a local beach with LongJohn and Double Oh Seven to "catch some fish". They came back with two beer cups - yes, beer cups - each filled with two or three large, somewhat exotic freshwater fish. One of them had died during transport, much to the distress of LongJohn, but my mother was not perturbed.

Of course, I told my mother that the fish would probably die at any rate, as they were absolutely not adjusted to the aquarium life, and would probably be stressed out (yes, fish can be stressed out!) by the drastic change of environment.

Of course, she paid no attention to me, and placed the remaining four fish into a small fishbowl.

Half an hour ago, I discovered them. All. Dead. Probably due to a mix of stress and oxygen deprivation (the fishbowl had no air pump). I mourned their deaths for about ten seconds before realized that one of them was still slightly breathing! Quickly, I woke my mother up and demanded that she try to save that one last little guy by placing him in the larger tank, where the sexy goldfish would try to use their sexy charms and revive it. She begrudgingly did so, however, I feel as though that poor fellow is going to die anyway. It's just lying at the bottom of the aquarium, gills desperately pumping water while the other fish avoid it, and the algae eaters run their whiskers over it, not realizing that it isn't dead yet.

Now that I think about it, it could have easily been the goldfish food that killed it. It probably wasn't at all used to that kind of diet.

All this to say that my mother is a fish killer. And that I probably can't trust her with any pet's life.

But I still want a dog.

Labels: brother, fifth year shit, piffed off