Submitted by dad Dan
Love story? With my fish?
Okay… well, I suppose this must be an easier task than a love story amongst humans. I mean, it should be, right? There’s no psycological layer of higher thinking, no appeal of intellect, no boundries to cross, no art.
These are fish. Governed by grace of swimming, and that’s about it.
So therefore it should be easy to write about a fish love story… especially one with no confining criteria of storytelling. Hell; I could simply go about dictataing the “Move… Apprach… Fan… retreat… confront… move… apprach… circle… move…” or whatever goes about the English version of how they swam at each other. I would still be within the confindes of the criteria to write this thing.
Anyway, I don’t know. I’m not about fact and figures. I am not that sort of man. I am, however, a man. And it’s a proven fact that men like fish.
And given that… (I’d hate to have to prove it as some sort of theorm) I am a man and have decided that I want to keep some fish. You know… because I’ve got a soft heart and actually sort of feel bad for all the fish I caught and ate (very tasty) or otherwise killed at some point in my life since I’m one of those humans.
So yeah… I’ve got some fish. And since I’m a human I made it into an art. Because that’s what humans do with everything.
My… um… art… is a form of entertainment. And I like Whimsy, so they are such, and on display in my living room. On the weeks when I decide to stay on top of the goddamn algea maintanence, it looks really nice.
I have 14 fish, of three species.
10 Rummy-Nose Tetras
3 Angelfish
1 Clown Loach.
Now… love.
Love?
Well, we all know men love fish.
We established that.
WHY?… that’s a question for a 600 page book.
I don’t know if these fish love each other. I do know that they have decided not to kill each other for many many hundreds of days. I think that is a big deal. I mean, if you were about 4 inches in each direction and you lived in a box with 13 others, with limited EVERYTHING… and you decided NOT to kill everything else- well, isn’t that love? I think it is.
So yes. My fish fell in love.
Now, I don’t mean to sound TOO dire here. I do my best to give them ‘the good life’. After all, they are fish. Easy for something like me to provide for. I do care. I can say (on no uncertain terms) that they enjoy some fantastic food. So good, in fact, that I think I drove them slightly crazy.
This includes:
Tetramin ™ Color Pellets
Koymon Fish Morsels
Shrimp
Trader Joe’s Salmon Patties
California Dungeonous Crab
Spiders
Frozen Bloodworms (from the Amazon -they love these)
Whatever I did, the Angelfish decided to mate.
Yeah, that means… they enjoy each others’ company enough to actually have… well.. children.
Remember, however, that these are fish. And beyond the Discovery Channel world of fish in their natural enviornment. These are fish in a box. In my Living Room.
They have to improvise.
Also, the Angel Fish fell in love. These fish are complicated. They have bizzare breeding patterns. They have predefined parenting skills. They are in my Living Room.
Well, two of them decided to breed. Someone was the odd-man-out.
What I am (as a human) happy about is this; Angelfish don’t breed very easilly. They need to feel “comfortable”.
Comfortable. 🙂 That is quite the abstract word, isn’t it? Whatever I did… maybe the food? the guests? the music? whatever it was… they felt COMFORTABLE!
They felt comfortable enough to have kids. 🙂 Amongst each other. Amongst the box. Amongst me.
So yeah, I guess that’s love. Maybe.
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This is actually the best story on here.
If this story were translated to the Big Screen and human beings, it would be a real tear jerker. How two Angelfish find love against all odds.
Any way this is one of my favorite pet love stories, and I voted for it a lot.