Anorexic Fish

Suite Besty and Cool Sis are out of town this weekend, so I agreed to feed Cool Sis's Fish. I have no problem with this whatsoever, but it has certainly been an adventure every time I've done it in the past two days. Fish needs to be fed twice a day; easy to do, I just walk over after lunch and dinner. The adventure always comes with the walk to and from.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Suite Besty gave me her key to Cool Sis's. I walk over, place key in lock, turn, hear lock unlock, door will not open. I try again. And again. And Again. Text Suite Besty and Cool Sis and hope they won't kill me for the now possible accidental murder of Fish. Leave in defeat with prayers for Fish and a peaceful resolution. (too much West Wing, anyone?)

FRIDAY NIGHT: Both Cool Sis and Suite Besty assure me it's okay that Fish skip a meal and give me further instructions on how to manhandle the door into letting me in. Dinner closes at 7 on Fridays, and I was working until about 6. Then it started raining. And thundering, with much lightning. 'Is food really worth it?' I ask myself. I think of poor Fish and reluctantly pull on the pink rain boots. (and if you know me at all, you know that the fact that they were pink made it easier and a much happier experience) It's now 6:40. Twenty minutes to walk to Cool Sis's, feed Fish, and walk back and get dinner. Sounds easy when the walk isn't five minutes each way. and if you're not in a thunderstorm. But Fish needed me, so off I went. On my way there, pink umbrella firmly above my head. I get a text from Hawaiian Beauty. Hawaiian Beauty is one of my best friends, and as you can probably guess, lives in Hawaii. She's ALWAYS working, so as a result of this, and also the fact that I love speaking with her, I opened the text. Conversation goes something like this:

HB: How are you? What's happening?
ME: Oh, not too much. Walking through a mild thunderstorm to go feed a fish and make it back in time for dinner. You?
HB: What? That's highly unusual.
ME: I find it to be unusual as well. Oh yay the wind's picking up.
HB: Weird things are happening to you right now..did you fall down the rabbit hole?

At this point I had made it to Cool Sis's unharmed and, with my new instructions on how to actually get INSIDE, I made it past the door. As per instructions, I was to feed Fish one pellet at a time. I glanced at my watch, so that I had about thirteen minutes before dinner would close, so I could just feed Fish and be on my way. Easy. WRONG. I shake one pellet out and drop it in the bowl. Fish swims around it, to it, under it, behind it, and then FINALLY comes toward it and eats it. And promptly spits it back out again. SIGH. and FACE PALM. This is where I returned to the conversations with Hawaiian Beauty:

ME: Fish doesn't want to eat! He spits his food back out! Anorexic Fish that I walked a mile in the rain for!
HB: Crazy.

I placed a few more pellets in Fish's bowl, and hurried on my way to dinner. I made it with five minutes to spare, having dodged lightning, five cars trying to KILL me, and much rain. Was I successful? Nope. But did I have an adventure? Yup.

Fear not though, I went over to Cool Sis's again today and Fish actually ate. The anorexia/bulimia of Fish seems to be mild and an on-again, off-again deal.

And so ends the companionship of LC and Fish. For now.