Life Is Funny: This is NOT a Toy
Monday, January 11, 2010 at 7:00AM
MAD21 in Cat, Family, Fish, Fun, Life Is Funny, Life Is Funny, Pets

By MAD21

We have a very determined cat. KC is a wonderful pet. For the most part she stays out of trouble. But on the occasion when the urge overcomes her, she has been known to get in big trouble.

I was going to post a story about the day the veil of ignorance was removed from KC's eyes regarding how much fun it would be to play with the Christmas tree (even after it had been up for a few weeks).  But this story is much more funny than finding ornaments all over the living room floor, and hearing what can only be described as someone shaking the tree into submission.

We have had a fish tank for a long time. Six years to be exact. We originally got it to put in our then-new baby's bedroom for the white noise the filter provides. Before the baby actually came, we had purchased several fish, all of whom succumbed before the baby even lived in her room. We finally gave up, and just left the tank empty with the plan to buy more later. Well, it turned out to be MUCH later. Like... five years later. Yes, we filtered water for no fish for five years. Read on. It gets better.

Last spring our favorite babysitters called and asked if we would like to have some goldfish they'd won at a school carnival. We were like... Sure! Finally. Some residents for our very clean, very lonely fish tank. Our girls were SO excited. We got three huge goldfish. At the time of their arrival, we tried to explain to our girls that they had very short lifespan. One died a few days later, the other two lasted all summer.

The tank sat empty again for about four months until Daddy brought home three more fish from the pet store. He figured for 58 cents, it was worth another try. Plus, we had decided that unless we were going to have fish in the tank, it needed to be put away.

When Daddy brought the new fish home, he left them in their bag inside the stores shopping bag and sat them on the counter with the idea that after he got a few things done, he'd come back and introduce them to their new home. I came out to the kitchen awhile later to find them still sitting on the counter. I called downstairs to my hubby and reminded him they still needed to be put into the tank. He said he'd be right up. I went to bed.

Several hours later, I was awoken by my hubby freaking out. In a frantic whisper he says, "Wake up! Wake up! The fish are GONE!" I was like, what? He said, "The fish are gone and so is the whole bag that they were in!! But the shopping bag is still on the counter with water all over the place." He had gotten distracted and left the fish to fend for themselves all evening on the counter in the kitchen.

I hopped out of bed and grabbed a flashlight. Not wanting to wake the girls in our little treasure hunt, we quietly looked everywhere. Under beds, behind doors, under tables, and all of the usual places KC (also known as our little thief because she likes to steal away with our girl's stuffed animals) takes things to hide that she has stolen.

I should also mention that we also had not found the cat. So while it was kind of funny that we were looking all over the house for the fish and their bag, we were also worried that the cat had gotten hurt in her overzealous desire to get to the fish.

After about 20 minutes, my hubby finally found the bag in our youngest daughter's bedroom. And... get this... the fish were still alive in about three tablespoons of the water that was still left in the bag. One died the next day, the other two lived about a month.

We just spent the weekend cleaning the tank out for new residents. We'll give this one more try with new water and a different variety of fish. And THIS time, the fish will go directly to the tank and not set up camp on the counter.

Never a dull moment in our house. Nope.

My friend and fellow blogger Wendy at Weight..What? has a fun carnival at her blog called "Life is Funny." Every Monday we talk about something in life that we find funny. Be sure to go visit her blog to read her post along with links to other blogs who are participating.

Article originally appeared on Make a Difference to One (http://makeadiff21.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.