My family went on a short trip to Virginia leaving me home alone.  That wasn’t a good decision on their part.

My 5-year old son has a fish bowl and a twenty-eight cent Wal-Mart special swimming around in it.  These are the type of fish that have the lifespan of a Jessica Simpson single.  My son named him Swimmy.  I decided to clean the bowl out since it was getting a bit cloudy.  Cleaned the bowl with no problems and put it back in his room.  A few hours later I went in his room and noticed the fish was taking a nap – upside down.  I didn’t want to believe that it was dead so I decided to poke at it a few times to see if it was trying to play a trick on me.  Guess not.

So, what were my options?

1) Take the remains out of the tank and give it to one of the cats to put some toothmarks into and and leave it laying by the tank telling him that the cat must’ve grabbed it out and played with it like a toy.
2) Get another fish that looks like Swimmy and replace it without my son knowing.
3) Leave the fish in the tank until my son comes home and take him up to his room and show him the fish is dead and try to explain about death to him.

So, I did what any responsible parent would do in this situation – ran to the store to get a replacement fish! 

It was 2 o’clock and I was expecting the family to be home by 7.  That gave me 5 hours to go the store and buy Swimmy II.  

I brought the fish bowl down to the kitchen and got the fish net out to scoop up the carcass.  Needless to say, it was a heck of a lot easier getting the fish out this time than it was before – they don’t seem to put up much of a struggle when they are dead!  I stuck it in a small plastic bag so I could take it to the store and compare it to the living ones.

Got in the car and headed to Wal-Mart.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to the one 5 minutes from the house because they don’t sell fish there, so I had to head 15 minutes away to get a fish!  This Wal-Mart, like every other one, was busy so just getting a parking spot was an adventure on it’s own.  When I got in the store I headed right over to the fish tanks.  Pulling out my plastic bag of the fish I pressed it against the glass trying to find one that was about the same size and color.  Actually, I did try to find one that had more color to it, figuring that my son’s faded because IT WAS DEAD!  I spotted one.  I flagged down one of the employees to get the fish for me.  The small Asian woman came over and asked me which one I wanted.  I pointed to the fish I found earlier.  Needless to say, there were more than 50 fish in this tank and trying to get that one specific fish would be chore in itself.  Everytime she would try to grab that one fish at least a half dozen more would be caught in the net.  After her mumbling some words in a language I’ve never heard before she finally got the one I needed.

I took the fish home and placed it the bowl and put it back in my son’s room.  I hope that he won’t notice that it’s a different fish.  If he does then I’ll just tell him that he was gone for a few days and forgot what Swimmy looked like.

That’ll work, right? 

So, I drove 30 minutes roundtrip to buy a 30 cent fish!  The clock is ticking down, the only thing I can do it sit here and wait for him to come home.