The Goldfish
Or, Amusing Lessons on Life, Death, and Raising Children
No one properly warns you beforehand about all the weird situations you will encounter as a parent. Sure, when you tell your friends and family your wife is pregnant and they get past their clumsy attempts to hide their instant reactions, which, in my case, went something along the lines of what the hell are you thinking knocking her up when you’re not even married and can barely pay your rent, they might get around to recommending a brand of diapers or a particular car seat. Useful, but not particularly enlightening.
And after you tell them you’re having another kid and they push through the urge to tell you you’re a moron because you just got to the point where you can finally feed your first kid without government assistance, they’ll probably suggest a good daycare or bunk beds, because you sure as hell can’t afford a big enough house for them to have their own rooms. But this is all basic boilerplate stuff.
Everyone advises you to pat your baby gently on the back to help them burp, and to swaddle them tight in their blanket like a burrito to help them sleep. And if your grandparents are still alive, they’re usually eager to chime in with some outdated tips like putting whiskey on their gums when they’re teething or that a quick backhand will knock the sass right out of a toddler. (In general, it’s probably best to ignore any and all advice from two or more generations back.) But they don’t say a peep to warn you about the kind of odd stuff that’s really gonna throw you for a loop.
Part of this is by design, I believe. Your predecessors don’t want to scare you off, or else the whole human race is doomed. If you don’t believe me, read an article from any major news outlet fretting over millennials not having enough kids. Of course, that has more to do with the working-class freaking out over a shortage of people to exploit for their workforce than genuine concern for the future of our species, but I digress. This isn’t meant to be a diatribe against the ills of society. I’ll need a few drinks to get going on that subject, and even then I’ll probably direct you to the pamphlet I wrote on the subject.*
*Just kidding. Pamphlet does not exist. I tried to write it once, but I had a few too many drinks and passed out at my desk. Unless a bunch of drool on my keyboard is going to point humanity in the right direction, I got nothing.
Interestingly enough, this also connects to my adjacent theory for why sex naturally feels good. I’m no biologist, but hear me out. Unlike other animals, for whom sex isn’t exactly pleasurable (read up on cats, if you don’t believe me) we’re conscious enough to know how much of a pain in the ass parenting can be, but sex is so amazing that we’re willing to risk it. We’ve even invented all these workarounds to take kids out of the equation, from condoms to birth control, but contrary to what your health class teacher preached, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of unprotected sex, so we inevitably roll the dice, consequences be damned.
However, if someone had alerted me that my two-year-old would wake up early from his nap, take off his full diaper, and use his own shit to paint a Picasso on the wall above his crib, I might have reconsidered the whole procreation thing from the start. As I held my breath and scrubbed the walls with soap and water, I certainly played out several scenarios in my head that involved leaving my son on the steps of a Dickensian orphanage. But there’s more to it than that.
The simple fact of the matter is that Mr. Rogers was right. We’re all special. Well, maybe not special, but certainly unique. We might overlap more than some of us like to admit, but there’s no denying we all have our own eccentricities, no matter how much some of us try to hide them. That’s why there isn’t a true parenting manual, regardless of whatever nonsense quack experts are selling on daytime TV and social media. When push comes to shove, we don’t know what the hell any of us are going to do, and we’re even more clueless as to why.
For example, my oldest has worn a hoodie every day since preschool. Every. Single. Day. Doesn’t matter how hot it is, or the time of year. We can be walking somewhere in the middle of a blazing hot July afternoon, and he won’t take it off, even if I’m riding his ass to do so before he collapses of heat stroke.
One of the instructors at the Boys & Girls Club afterschool program tried to force him to take it off when he was in third grade, and he refused, taking a stand that would have made the Spartans at Thermopylae proud. He flipped out and screamed at the teacher, which was very unlike him, and retreated to the corner. Eventually, the club called me and I had to leave work to go and talk him down. Annie had him tested after that, but he didn’t land squarely enough on the spectrum to get an autism diagnosis. The hoodie stayed on, however.
That isn’t the only incident we had at the Boys & Club Girl either. His little brother, who is generally more combative, butted heads with the director in the fourth grade when he brought my copy of Stephen King’s IT for reading time. The director called to tell me they confiscated the book because it was not appropriate reading material. I didn’t necessarily disagree with him. Owen was too young to read IT, but I knew he grabbed it off my shelf. I didn’t expect him to make it very far into the book before he grew frustrated and went back to something at his own reading level, but I didn’t see the harm in letting him have a go at it.
The last thing I wanted to do was discourage him from reading, so I was willing to let him figure it out for himself. Unfortunately, I didn’t stand a chance of convincing the director. All the same, I was secretly impressed by Owen’s defiance. That same defiant nature will turn my hair gray (grayer, anyway) and frequently torment me, especially once he enters his premature teenage phase at age ten, but no matter how crazy it makes me, I can’t help but respect his willingness to stand up for what he believes. Even if what he believes is sometimes misguided.
Other aspects of raising kids are nearly universal across respective generations. In my sons’ case, they were technological savants from the moment they form in the womb. Like other kids their age, they instinctively know how to use virtually any device or form of tech, quickly racing past my fumbling efforts to keep up. Of course, this didn’t stop them from changing the language on the Wii to Chinese before they could read. Still not sure how I managed to switch that back.
My oldest, Sean, is a natural gamer. From a young age, he’s collected video game consoles, both contemporary and retro, and he rigs all of them to play through the same TV in a setup that looks like something out of NASA’s mission control. By junior high, he is helping me shop for computers and coding his own video games.
Owen isn’t as hardcore, but after a couple of friendly tutorials on NBA2K, he quickly learns to dominate me in our head-to-head matchups, and he loves to trash talk. I do too, and I have no reservations about talking smack to my son, but I have to actually win a game first. When I finally did, after two years of ineptitude, I forced him to pose for pictures with me and the score on the TV in the background. I posted them on Facebook so I can get yearly reminders to rub it in his face, even though I’ve hardly won another game since. They both regularly kill me on Super Smash Bros, and their youngest brother is gaining fast.
However, there is no better example I can give of the roller coaster that is parenting than what has become known in my house as the goldfish incident. This particular ordeal took place during the summer of 2013, in an extremely rocky period for my first marriage. The fact that I refer to it as my first marriage should give away how things ended between me and Annie, but at that time, we were still holding on by a thread.
We still lived together at the time, but I had moved into the extra bedroom. Nothing was finalized, but divorce felt inevitable. I spent most of my time alone in the spare room after the boys go to bed, ceding the living room and the rest of the house to her.
At one point, she sneaks into my room in the middle of the night and crawls into bed with me to satisfy certain needs. Remember what I said about humans being willing to chance any and all undesired consequences just to get off? “This doesn’t mean anything,” she says. “It’s just physical. No kissing.” I’m just as horny as she is, so I agree to her terms.
Unfortunately, this time the unintentional effects actually are too much for her, and she stops halfway through, tears streaming down her cheeks. In time, she will get over this hang-up before we split for good, but on this night she climbs off me and retreats to her bedroom. Formerly our bedroom, I think, unsatisfied and stewing. I have no choice but to finish by myself.
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Sean is six years old, and Owen is four, and they’re both old enough to know something is wrong with their parents, but they’re spared the details. They care more about the county fair being in town, and we agree to pretend everything is normal and take them. Then Owen throws a wrench into the plan by biting a kid at daycare. I ask him why he would do such a thing, but he shrugs and says nothing. He is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to things that bother him, which makes it difficult to resolve his problems.
“Well, whatever the kid did, next time tell the teacher,” I say. “Or punch him. But no more biting. You’re not a goddamn badger.”
Annie is unimpressed by my fatherly advice and determines he needs a severe punishment. She tells him he’s not going to the fair, which ignites an all-timer of a tantrum, but no matter how much he screams and cries, she isn’t budging. I suspect the severity of her sentence has as much to do with her not wanting to go to the fair as it does with teaching him a lesson. It’s a hundred degrees and muggy out, and she’s in the middle of binging a show on Netflix. She volunteers to stay home with him, which means I get to take Sean to the carnival by myself. My only consolation is that Owen is in rare form, so I doubt she’ll get the relaxing evening at home she envisions.
The fair is overpriced and underwhelming. I buy a few tickets, but Sean isn’t interested in any of the rides. We go through the house of mirrors, but neither of us are impressed. The fun house isn’t much better, so we gravitate toward the games. These cost more than the rides, and most of them are rigged.
One of the exceptions is the rubber duck game, which is a guaranteed win. There isn’t much to it. Kids pay five bucks to pick a duck floating on the water inside the carnie’s tank, and when they turn it over there is a letter written on the bottom in magic marker. S means they win a small prize, M a medium prize, and B is for big. Rumor has it there’s a G floating around there somewhere for a grand prize, but no one has ever pulled it, and the stand doesn’t even advertise what the grand prize might be, so I have my doubts.
Sean leans over the tank, debating which duck to choose, when I spot a guy I went to high school with walking in our direction. I don’t want to talk to him, but before I can hide behind another customer, we make eye contact and I’m screwed. He saunters over for the usual catching up chit-chat, even though we never knew each other that well to begin with.
I tell him I’m married without implying it’s falling apart, that I have two sons, and I’m currently going back to school and dealing craps at one of the local Indian casinos. He fills me in on what he’s done with his life, but I’m not interested enough for any of it to register. Then he introduces me to his wife, who isn’t nearly as hot as mine, even if they seem to be on far better terms, and she hurries him along to catch up with their kids. The whole interaction takes about thirty seconds, but when I turn back to Sean, I see the carnie handing him a small transparent Tupperware bowl with a goldfish swimming around inside.
“Whoa, what’s this?” I ask.
Turns out, he pulled a duck with a B on it, entitling him to a goldfish. The other option is a giant stuffed animal, but as soon as she puts the bowl in his hands, there’s no turning back. He’s never given the slightest inclination that he wants a fish, or any kind of pet.
We had to give up our dog, Molly, about a year earlier because we moved and didn’t have enough space for her to run around. Luckily, some friends of ours were willing to take her in, so we still got to see her occasionally, but it was very traumatic. I held Annie while she cried after we dropped Molly off, and I felt like crying myself. I’m basically half-robot though, so the tears didn’t come.
Sean, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered at all. Owen was still young enough he hadn’t formed much of a bond with the dog yet, and probably didn’t fully realize what was happening. But Sean just went about his business. He had no problem with Molly, but he never gave her a whole lot of thought, so it was business as usual for him. This stupid fish is a different story altogether. The second he sees it, his eyes light up, and I don’t have the heart to tell him no. Annie is going to kill me.
Before I could ask the carnie why she thought it was a good idea to give fish to kids without talking to their parents first, she starts her spiel. “The fish is the prize, but if you want to do it right, I have you covered,” she says, reaching for a bowl behind her. The bowl has no water in it, but it is filled with multi-colored sand, a plastic treasure chest, and several packets of “high end” fish food. “This is like the filet mignon of fish food, sir,” she says, rushing through her scripted upsell. “And I can let you have it all for only fifty dollars.”
“Fifty bucks!” I blurt out. I’m shocked by the audacity. If only half of what she’s saying is accurate, and I doubt that’s the case, the sum total of the parts still can’t retail for more than twenty bucks, tops.
“If you wanna do it right,” she says.
“Do what right? Own a fish?” She nods, and Sean looks at me expectantly, but I’m having none of it. I want to ask her how many suckers actually fall for this scam, but I don’t want to cause a scene. It’s too hot for that. “We’re good with just the fish. I got bowls at home.”
I turn Sean to walk away, and she calls after us. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
“Thanks,” I say. I keep all the nasty names I’m calling her inside my head, for the sake of the kid.
Owen forgets about his punishment when we come home with the fish. He can’t be angry when something this exciting is going down. Sean sets the Tupperware container on the kitchen counter and the two of them watch the dumb thing swim around for the next hour, until it’s time for bed. They brush their teeth and I read them a story, and after they give hugs and kisses, they both make a special trip back to the kitchen to tell the fish goodnight. Sean names it Mario, because he is obsessed with all things Nintendo.
Annie is less enthused by the fish’s presence, but at least she doesn’t yell at me. In fact, she seems relieved I didn’t fall for the carnie’s scam and buy the overpriced bowl, which proves how far her opinion of me has fallen over ten years. We have a clear glass vase that will serve for a bowl, but she’s annoyed that she has to run to Walmart to buy fish food and other accessories.
I’m banned from the store for a previous incident, and there aren’t any other options in Stinton, so she is constantly holding this over my head. She makes me hand over the contents of my wallet to pay for supplies. I give her a twenty-dollar bill, which doesn’t sound like much, but money is tight and every dollar counts. I hate handing it over, but this whole thing is my fault, and this is the price of my lack of supervision. She comes back an hour later with a bag of rocks and a large helping of fish food. They didn’t have any smaller sizes, so we are covered for months, and it only cost eighteen dollars, confirming my appraisal of the carnie’s swindle.
Sadly, the fish doesn’t have months left to live. It doesn’t even have days. The boys get up the next morning and are thrilled to inspect the fish’s new home. The fish’s mood, on the other hand, is unchanged. Perhaps he knows what is coming.
They kiss their hands and press them to the side of the vase and tell Mario they’ll see when they get home from daycare. I’m working the day shift, so I get home at the same time as Annie does with the boys. They ignore me and rush inside the second she unlocks the door, and their whole world crumbles the second they step foot in the kitchen. The fish is floating belly up in the vase.
At first, Annie and I are relieved by this development. I silently curse the carnie for giving us a fish that was obviously at death’s door to begin with, and then having the gall to try to upsell me on accessories, but other than the eighteen bucks I’m out, this is like winning the sweepstakes. Neither one of us wanted to spend the foreseeable future taking care of a mindless goldfish, and now we’re out, before the kids could possibly bond with the dumb animal. Or so we think.
The boys act like one of their grandparents suddenly dropped dead in front of them, instead of a fish they just met the night before. There is crying and histrionics and tantrums, flailing of arms and gnashing of teeth. Owen smashes one of his toy cars in a rage, and Sean pulls his hoodie closed around his face and sulks in silence.
At a loss, we foolishly offer to buy them a new fish as a replacement, but that just sets them off again. How can we be so callous as to even consider replacing poor Mario? He was one in a million, and there is no replacing him. At least, that’s the gist I take away from their protests. It’s hard to understand them when they’re screaming and sobbing.
I apologize for my heartlessness, sarcastically remarking that of course I understand their attachment to a pet they couldn’t touch with their hands, but who clearly touched their hearts with his fins. It goes right over their heads.
They’re horrified when I suggest holding a funeral for Mario over the toilet. “You can’t flush our best friend,” they say. Instead, we put Mario into an empty pack of cigarettes. Sean has colored over the box with his markers to make it look like a casket, and Owen constructs a tombstone out of cardboard and construction paper. He misspells Mario, but I give him a pass on account of his grief and his age.
The next day, we gather for the funeral in the back yard. I’m annoyed that I actually have to dig a hole for this fish, but that’s the whole point of this story, isn’t it? The things we never anticipate doing for our kids. Luckily, a few scoops with Annie’s garden-trowel does the trick.
The kids insist we dress up like we would at a regular funeral, so they put on slacks and collared shirts. I don’t remember them being so enthusiastic for dress clothes when my great-uncle died, but I don’t put up a fight. I wear my pinstriped suit and Annie wears a dress.
We’re not religious, which is good, because the last thing I want to do is try to rope a preacher into joining us, but the kids inform us it’s too painful to speak, so it falls to me to officiate the ceremony. I don’t know what to say about a fish, so I mutter something about ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and recite a William Blake poem from one of the books on Annie’s shelf.
I’m not sure it applies to the situation, but it feels properly somber. I notice Annie struggling not to smile as I read it, and she gives me a wink when the kids aren’t looking. It is one of the last special moments we ever share, and it passes quickly, but it almost makes this whole charade worth the trouble. The neighbors watch the ceremony unfold from their window, and I can only imagine what they’re thinking.
Later that night, I put the boys to bed, and Sean tells me he doesn’t blame me for Mario’s death. I wasn’t aware I was even in line to be the fall guy on this catastrophe, but it’s good to know I’m off the hook. “Thanks, buddy,” I say, giving him a hug and kiss. “I appreciate that.”
“But maybe we should get the fancy bowl from the fair next time,” he adds.
“Maybe next time you should get the stuffed animal instead,” I say. “They live forever.”
And with that bit of wisdom, I switch off the light and leave them both to ponder mortality until they nod off for the night.
Thanks for reading Powder Blue Pulp. I hope you enjoyed the story, and I'd love to hear your craziest parenting stories in the comments, if they’re not too traumatic to recall. This one isn’t even close to the craziest thing I’ve experienced with some kids, so I’m sure you have some doozies as well.