Middle Ground
I came home to my cold apartment to find my fish tank frozen solid. My goldfish was suspended in mid ice. He could move his eye barely enough to register a,”what the hell?!”
I lit a fire in the fireplace and sat the fish tank next to it. After an hour the ice had melted.
My goldfish goes, “tell me why we moved to Chicago again?”
I said, “when we lived in Florida, you complained when the sunlight made your tank water boil.”
My goldfish said, “I know. It’s just hard to find a middle ground.”
I said, ” Tell me about it.”
He could move his eye barely enough to register a,"what the hell?!"
I am bent over and still laughing.
I told my goldfish. He said, "What's so funny about that?"
I said, "Sometimes, if we're lucky, our misfortunes can bring a smile to another."
My goldfish said, "Could you just please stop putting intimate details of our life into the blog?"
I said, "Wait, I want to make sure I got that."
The goldfish said, "Hey!"
I had a goldfish in first year university (the same year I tried to give up swearing for Lent). Over Christmas a friend was supposed to come and feed him. I found out when I got back from my 2.5 week vacation that Simon (his brother/lover, Garfinkle, had died about a week after they came home from the store with me) had survived that lonely holiday all alone. My 'friend' had decided to go visit his new girlfriend out of province.
After that, I figured Simon had earned (the hard way) my undivided attention. From then on, when I left town, i.e.: on student discounted train trips to visit pals living in Toronto, I would bring Simon in a Cheeze Whiz jar with holes punched in the lid.
When I arrived in Yorkville at my rich friend's house, her dad, upon hearing about Simon's hardships, got him a large bowl and filled it with a diamond tennis bracelet and a big bottle of imported spring water from France.
Simon may have been lonely for fish company, but that final year he lived beyond Christmas was filled with bling and water from exotic places.
Simon must have felt wealthy. It's a moving story.