Goodbye Desmond Paco

I have been wanting a dog for a long time. I have dreamed about owning a beagle (would be named Frank) or a daschund (would be named Ruby) or some mutt who needed me (Olive or Doris) for a long time. I would also settle for a cat. I would have two (Patty and Mayonnaise, Mayo for short, after my favorite cartoon character of all time). You get the idea, I want a pet. Something to nurture. But of course, my building, fascist, heartless, jerks that they are, will not allow pets. And admittedly, it would be unkind to put a dog or cat in my shoebox of an apartment. To both the animal and the carpet.

So, last weekend, I decided I would buy a fish. Desmond Paco. Des and I were the best of friends immediately. I bought him the expensive jewels for his bowl instead of the cheap gravel because he seemed like that sort of guy. When he came home with me we watched Lost and he liked it, I would imagine because of all the water. However his show of choice actually ended up being "Kendra." (I can't blame him--who can resist?)

I owned Desmond Paco for approximately 26 hours before he died. I came home from work and started talking to him about my day, you know, the usual things one says to a fish. Then my friend stopped by and of course I introduced them.

"I think your fish is dead," my friend said.
"Oh no he's not. He just doesn't move that much." I looked.

Desmond P was pretty still. **Frantic shaking of the bowl and tapping commenced. Becoming more desperate, I reached in the bowl and tapped him on the back. After this, he immediately flipped over, and floated to the top of the bowl.

Explosion of Emotion.

I cried for about 10 minutes because I felt like such a failure of a mother. My boyfriend told me his death was due to DC water, which is basically poisoned with chlorine. Apparently there is so much crap (literally, crap) in the water, they have to add huge amounts of chlorine in order to head off an epidemic. He also told me that "it's very normal for fish to die quickly."

This series of comments led to me throwing a tantrum and stating that, "My life will only be disappointment." In an attempt to comfort me, my boyfriend said, "I'll buy you another one, it was only $3.50." This was only more upsetting and only led to further tantrums. You see, my boyfriend is the stable one. Even-keeled, approaches situations analytically as oppose to emotionally. I tend to resort to the most extreme conclusion possible

(this happens to me in many situations, and I will outline a few 1) the man walking behind me absolutely has a knife in his pocket and is planning on chasing me into an alley. 2) the woman in CVS hates me. I know this because to every other customer she is very friendly and hands them their bags. With me, she shoves my tampons across the counter and disregards me entirely. Either she hates me, or does not like feminine products. I would entertain the latter if she was male. 3) The pain I get in my side when I run is absolutely cancer. It can't be that I am out of shape. It's cancer. 100%. 4) I'm certain that my job is shaving years off my life. Every stressful interaction is a day less I will live. I sometimes imagine the following while sitting in a pointless meeting: I'm 30 minutes away from finding the buried treasure and suddenly, I realize I am going to die in 29 minutes. I would remember all those wasted minutes in meetings and think, 'BLAST! If only I could have had one less meeting!! The treasure would be finally be mine!!' This is an unlikely scenario, as I rarely use the word 'blast.' 5) Oh, my fish died? That must mean that the rest of my life will only be one big, fat disappointment. That's the only logical conclusion.)

Many people have consoled me, told me their own fish-death stories. But I miss my Desmond Paco. And irrational as I can sometimes be, his untimely death deeply saddened me and I don't think I will forget his long, sad float to the top of his bowl, nor the plop he made when my boyfriend dropped him in the toilet. I felt a little guilty--making his final resting place the very water that murdered him--but, as I have been told, he was just a fish, and fish die.

Des and I just hanging out.




BFFs