Because sometimes fish die on a random Wednesday afternoon...
An argument for faking your own deadlines
Today began with a simple enough momlife/writerlife quandary: How exactly am I going to get my tree up tonight in sync with the Rockefeller tree lighting while I have four write-ins to attend?
…and where the hell am I putting the fish this year?
Smokey, a 29-cent feeder fish bought in October 2017 to be company for the single surviving carnival fish won the month before for my three year old son, has grown to be a palm-sized beast incapable of sharing his tank with another fish due to his girth. He’s been alone in that tank for about five years. Feeling bad that he might be lonely, I gave him the coveted spot in our front window next to our living room couch a little over two years ago so he could feel more a part of the family.
It’s been wonderful, except at Christmastime when I need my tree to be in his spot. It a prime spot for window decor and has close proximity to the desperately needed electrical outlet.
I knew I was going to prioritize my writing over all else as November is coming to a close and today is the last day I have scheduled writing time, but just as I was getting up from my couch to head to my office for the noon Write-in I glanced over to Smokey, and saw his orange form lying in the corner of the tank nearest to me, completely still atop the blue aquarium rocks.
I went to my write-in, told everyone there, and got to writing.
In the back of my mind one thought continued to permeate, I have only two hours before my son gets home. I need a plan. I knew this was likely the end of my writing project-focused day, but I also wondered, Did Smokey just make room for a Christmas miracle for me?
Not in the way I thought.
My son took the news better than I thought. Being me, I asked him if he wanted to write about his feelings, maybe write Smokey a letter. Instead he asked if he could write a letter to his class explaining what happened, and if I could make him a paper with a picture of dead Smokey on it to show them. I suggested a live picture and he got to work.
The telling of the news and creating this document of his overlapped with much of my writing time in my third Write-in of the day and when it ended I decided that maybe, just maybe, I could cash in on Smokey’s Christmas miracle. I got right to work on cleaning up the scene of the crime, prepping a funeral service, selecting a coffin and discussing burial options with my husband.
It took a bout an hour jus tto get the water out of the tank. When I carefully brought the fish out and placed him in the coffin (a wonderfully floral tissue box from Kleenex, a rare rectangular prism shape in my house as Costco had sold out of the cubes during the last Rivera household cold), my son burst out of his seat and said, “Now we will flush him back to the ocean!”
I stuttered. My husband had suggested this disposal earlier and I guffawed at its ridiculousness, had he truly forgotten the size of our dearly departed friend? I glanced at him, looking for him to repeat the rebuttal I gave earlier and stuttered a second time when he said, “Let’s go!”
So I was going, we all were. We said a prayer. We said goodbye and then I (not a single other human on this planet can be blamed for I was the one with fish in hand), levitated the orange body over the bowl where I lowered, lowered, and lowered it until it gently slid out of my plactic bag covered hand and into the bowl. “Goodbye, Smokey!” I said and nodded to my husband. He understood and flushed the fish away to the ocean, just as my nine year old son believed.
Except it didn’t.
The remaining hours of my night up until the moment of sitting to type this post in some sort of cathartic release of the grief,and grossness has been spent with the following activities:
pouring bucket of water down the bowl
watching the toilet bowl water seep slowly down hanging on to hope that maybe this wasn’t the enormous mistake it felt like
plunging toilet
having son call family to talk about the loss
conducting the following Google searches during the final write-in of the night:
“flushed fish broke toilet?”
“auger”
“how to use auger toilet”
“can I use wet vac to get a fish out of the toilet?”
debating the authenticity of Internet advice of watervaccing with husband
bringing son to the tenant’s apartment to pee midway through the last write-in of the night
celebrating the water vac exhumation of Smokey
disposing of Smokey
In all the chaos I whispered to myself, “It was a family emergency a death in the family.” I was trying to give myself some grace for missing my deadline. And somewhere, in the middle of all of that, I remembered that today is actually November 29th, not November 30th. I only felt like it was the end of the month because I didn’t have any meetings scheduled for November 30th. I do this from time to time. I fake a deadline, it’s kind of like writing a lot more words than you need on your daily goal to prep for an upcoming distracting holiday. The best part about the infrequent use of this technique is moments like these when I suddenly remember I have a little more time.
And, yeah, I just spent a big chunk of it writing this, but some words need to be written, you know?
Here’s hoping that everyone else squeezing the last bits out of November for their writing goals has an uneventful tomorrow.
Happy writing!
Poor Smokey. Those unexpectedly massive fish are fighters! Even beyond death!
When I was your son’s age I had a goldfish who grew much too big as well. Unlike Smokey, my fish was constantly attempting to escape. He refused to be contained by a mere fish bowl. He had a world to explore! Every morning I woke to the feel of a cold, smooth body underfoot as I rose out of bed. How he survived the number of years he did daily landing outside his tank and waterless for hours, I’ll never know.
But I am scarred for life.