Just A Natural Fact

I stared as the goldfish swam weakly around the toilet bowl. Suddenly Husband's words, once dismissed, now surged back into my head.

I was brought to the toilet bowl that fateful night because of Son. Son, who had been on an epic run of goldfish deaths. No matter what I did, every goldfish I brought home died in a matter of weeks.

Once upon time we had goldfish that thrived. It was the heyday of aquatic grooming for the Pope-pourris. But one brutal day a goldfish died and we have been unable to recapture a little of the glory. To quote Bruce.

I have consulted our local pet store. Lord above, have I consulted them. No, Son isn't overfeeding. He's not underfeeding, either. In that case, they said, a bigger tank would fix my woes. Then a filter. Chemicals. Less frequent water changes. Change less of the water (that's different from less frequent water changes, trust me). Finally, vitamins. Vitamins, they proclaimed, were the one thing standing between my goldfish and a long life.

My filter percolated away. Vitamins drifted through the water. Yet goldfish after goldfish entered a tank that had become the maritime equivalent of  H.H. Holmes' Chicago hotel.

The death of each goldfish devastated me anew, and not just because I had to tell a little boy devoted to his finned friends that one of them had gone to the tank in the sky. It was because I couldn't bear the thought of any of my beloved pets suffering. I imagined them in that tank, slowly suffocating, or festering with infection, or succumbing to poison. Whatever the problem was in our tank, I was sure it caused a devastatingly painful death for our fish. I even considered that maybe, just maybe, the surviving fish warned each newcomer, a vain attempt to save each little immigrant's scaly life.

Sometimes, when a goldfish would pick an inconvenient time to die - think the first day of school, or when my mom was in the hospital -I surreptitiously replaced the fish. That just made me feel worse. I was simply sentencing another fish to the horrors of my fish tank. And this dangerous game of pesce Weekend At Bernie's eats at me. If Son learns of my deception, how can I ever expect his trust again? We have some big talks coming up in the near future. Sex. Drugs. Alcohol. How can I lie about what I did and still have him believe me?

So a few weeks ago when yet another goldfish was floating, aimlessly on his side, I had to break the news to Son once more. It has become easier, as the thrill of picking out a new fish eases his heartache. With the ground frozen, I offered a burial at sea.

"A burial at sea?" Son echoed, his blue eyes moist with unshed tears, yet curious all the same.

"All drains lead to the ocean," I sighed as he trailed me to the bathroom.

Rather than being horrified, Son was intrigued. We'd never flushed one of our gilled compatriots down the toilet. The hilarity and novelty of the proposed funeral captivated Son. He was on board - no nautical pun intended.

So I scooped the goldfish from the tank. His tail swished slightly, but as I stared, I could see no gill movement. I stared and stared and finally chalked it up to a fickle movement of the net.

But when we dumped our poor chordate brother in the toilet, he definitely, horribly, began to swim around the bowl. Just enough that I noticed. Not enough for Son to detect.

The only adult in the house for the night, I inwardly panicked. I couldn't send our cherished fish down the toilet. He'd drown! As terrible as I imagined life in our tank to be, I couldn't even fathom the savagery of a flushing death. What to do?

And that was when Husband's words echoed in my brain, a temporal lobe memory I thought I'd forgotten.

After euthanizing a cat, a dog, and a guinea pig, Husband felt it was high time to have a chat with me.  Aside from the prohibitive cost of veterinary euthanasia - $39 for a guinea pig! The man's not made of money! - Husband felt there was something inherently cruel about turning an animal over to a feared figure for the purpose of hastening death. Animals dislike seeing the vet, he explained. And when the animal is sick enough, death usually occurs quickly, with just the vet present, not in the loving arms of us, the owners. In the last moments of their lives, we have, on a fundamental level, betrayed our devoted friend.

Wary, I inquired as to the alternative.

"I'll send you an article," he replied.

"You can't be serious," I said, having read the short accounting. The glint in his eye and cock of his smile told me that, no, he wasn't serious. But he didn't exactly disagree, either.

So as I stared at the dying fish in my toilet on that dreadful night, I thought of the article. I thought of how I owed this poor fish, clearly dying, more than just a flush. I thought of how many times I'd seen Alligator. And I knew I couldn't pull the trigger. As it were.

What would Husband do in this situation? I asked myself. He and I have what may seem like a contrarion coexistence. I have carte blanche to bring into our home any rescue that twinges my bleeding heart. In our time together, I have rescued two cats, a dog, a guinea pig, a crayfish, and a hamster. And while I occasionally get the odd heckle from Husband - you drove an hour and a half to the SPCA for a hamster?! Does the cat really need her own water glass in our room at night? - he largely stays silent. Even more, he foots the bill. That's no small thing.

Wouldn't you drive hours for that little face?

Surely you can't make this cutie travel
three flights of steps for her water?!

Husband, on the other hand, has carte blanche to bring any dead animal, procured with his own hands, his own skill, and his own time, into our house. So while I occasionally give him the odd heckle - do you really have to discuss squirrel recipes in front of everyone at swim team? Are you really going to hang a dead deer in the yard if the butcher is closed?- I largely stay silent. Even more, I stay silent when pheasant blood cascades over my kitchen cabinets. That is no small thing.

I reserve the right to photograph it, though.

On the surface, a hunter is an odd choice for someone like me - a fourth generation animal lover,  four generations of family that has rescued anything with a tail or gills or whiskers. But living with a hunter, one can't help but see the humanity in the act. When you have invested time, money, and effort into procuring your meal, you use every part. You thank your quarry for all he has provided you. And you have likely saved him from a far less humane death. You see the damage done to the hunted's environment - pollution, climate failure, food disparity, loss of natural predators.

I mean, you can't grab a Naked Juice and some tampons while you're hunting your deer like you can when you get your bacon at the supermarket, but that's exactly the point.

I'll bet you didn't know there's all sorts of
products that remove human scent. Detergent.
Shower gel. Deodorant. Dryer sheets.

Daughter, I believe, is the very embodiment of our marriage of ideals. A born hunter who tirelessly campaigns for endangered cheetahs and homeless golden retrievers, her dream is to open a business that is a restaurant in the front and an animal shelter in the back.

Just, you know, be cautious with the daily special if there's an animal in the shelter that has overstayed its welcome. She's never said anything, but I'd still think twice. 

So all of this swam through my head, much more aggressively than the fish in the toilet bowl. I decided I would hustle Son off to bed, scoop the fish from the tank, and euthanize him much more humanely than a flush down the toilet. With the added benefit that he would never become the size of a tractor trailer and start eating Public Works employees.

But Son was married to the porcelain funeral. Flush, yelped my little H.H. Holmes in the making.

So with a silent apology, I flushed. And didn't use that toilet again until Husband was home.

Later that night, the sole person awake (oh God. Sole. Another fish. Will it never end?), I moved through my house, tidying before sleep took me - however temporarily - from the horror of my deed. And that was when I noticed the water on my kitchen table.

A huge, wet slick that was, quite frankly, unexplainable. I had wiped the table after bedtime snack hours ago. No leak dripped from the ceiling. A chill settled in my stomach as I realized the implications of the ghastly puddle on my table.

The goldfish had died in the toilet, a grisly death, at my hands. And he knew. And now he was going to haunt me. Haunt me in punishment for my foul acts.

Well, my grandfather used to say that there's always room for more. Just don't tell Husband. I don't think he'd agree with me rescuing ghost animals.

The Binge

Your viewing until the television "winter break" has ended:

Designated Survivor (ABC). Sure, a lot of the characters are pretty stock. But the unanswered whodunit and Kiefer's grace as a reluctant President Kirkman makes for some fine viewing.

Leah Remini:Scientology and the Aftermath (A&E). Leah Remini's docuseries on defectors from the famous (infamous?) church is compelling and curious.

The Exorcist (Fox). Not the movie, but the new show that is just as much about the exorcist as the exorcised. Is there something familiar, secretive, nagging about Geena Davis' Angela Rance? Watch and find out.

Black Mirror (Netflix). The Twilight Zone-esque series is eerie and full of warnings for the social media age in which we now live. The ep with Jon Hamm is great, and "Playtest" in Season 3 is downright freaky.

Weiner. The documentary follows the former NY Congressman as he tries to recover from his sexting scandal. If you think Scientology is compelling and curious, just wait until you dig into this.