A little fish tale

A while back I was helping my sister-in-law decorating for her son's confirmation. The budget was pretty tight and since he was 14 I didn't want to buy girly flowers. I was thinking hard and long to come up with something fun and unexpected. And I did! I went out and bought a couple of big round glass vases, filled them with green glass and managed to order something called Floralytes. (Lights that you can put in water - I'll tell you about those later...) A couple of days before the big day I bought gold fish and put into the vases. It turned out the be a unique, interesting and very fun decorative piece.

But the story doesn't end there. As with many things in life you make some choices that are rash and seem like an excellent decision at the time. But looking at the gold fish swimming happily around in their vase I suddenly realized one thing. I had bought a living creature just to make a decoration that would make everyone go: "Wow!". I had not even thought about what I was going to do with them after the party was over! I felt ashamed. I'm not really an animal person, but I'm not cruel either. So without hesitation I proclaimed to my son: "And these are yours after the party!" My son, being 10 at the time, rejoiced. Out we went to buy all the things we needed to make these two gold fish part of our little family. I had NO idea what I was in for!

First we had to get the aquarium. They had lots of different models, but since MY fish (which I had chosen only thinking about their decorative value) were going to grow really big, I had to get a big one. Then came the filtration system, the lighting, the decorative plants, the gravel, the little castle (very posh gold fish), the scull (for playing hide-and-seek, very important!), algae remover, glass cleaner, glass scraper, fish food (different kinds for different fish mind you), pellets (for when we were gone) and a whole list of other little things that I didn't even know existed. Of course, with such a BIG aquarium two little baby gold fish were almost lost, so we had to buy some more fish as well. And all the things I had to learn! Keeping gold fish is a science! (My uncle used to have two guppies in a bowl, I have no clue how they survived all those years. They probably didn't. I bet he just bought new ones every month.)

Well, to make a long story short. My little "budget" plan ended costing me about $400. And it turned out to be a whole lot of work. (I'm just glad I didn't get doves!)

My conclusion is: next time I'll just buy some flowers!