is wanting a pet every child's wish?

warning: long-winded post

Fu had been asking to have a pet for months. Like all other children, he asked for a dog. Being at home on weekdays only to sleep is not going to give us any time for a dog. I told him the dog will have to wait for us all day to return only to send us to bed moments after he/she sees us. I told him also that dogs have shorter lifespan than us and we will feel very sad when the dog passes on. There is also very little room to allow us a dog in our little 5-rm flat, blah blah..

Then once, he asked to have a chick! He said chicks are so cute. I asked him what we'll do with the chick when it grows up to the chicken. He gave such a childlike and somewhat cruel answer, "we'll just throw it out of our house and lock the door."

Tsk tsk tsk.. we told him, "OKAY! That'll be exactly what we're going to do with you! When you grow up, we'll just throw you out of our house and lock the door!"

That made him to think a little, he then said that we'll send the chicken back to the farm when it grows up. Still, we didnt think that keeping a chick will be a good idea. Yicks! So I thought I had the best idea of dealing with it and I thought that he wouldnt want to keep what I'm going to suggest, so I suggested to him, "the only pet that you can have at home is a fish."

"OK!"

....... oh man..... what have I done? So for the next couple of days, turned weeks (I'm not sure if it turned to months), that agreed proposal stuck in my mind. Finally last long Hari Raya long weekend, we went to the fishfarm. The same day that Dajie and family went.. my goodness, we didnt even know we went to the same place in the same morning till that same evening!

We enquired about the tiniest fish tank we saw there, it comes complete with a filter with an affordable price tag. I went on to ask which breed of fish to keep, "请问哪一种鱼最容易养，最难死？"

"红鱼." came the reply. We later found out that 红鱼is platy fish.

So we happily netted our 5 fish. Let me introduce them to you..

....hmm..... something's wrong with blogger's photo upload so please click the links..

Tiny - fu named it Shiney originally. He said cos its body was Shiney. At the time when we named it, it was already dead :(

Bully - there's no rocket science to how this fish got its name. It was chasing all the other fish away when we first fed them. We made it "swim at a corner" with a net and amazingly, it worked miracles and right after that, it was very well behaved!

Spotty - named after its spots. This one can really eat!

Rabbit - named after its colour its timid behavior.

Bulimic - Lastly, bulimic. We had wanted to stop at 4 but fu said get another orangy one for his sister since that's her favorite colour. Why Bulimic? It would spit out the food that it just swallowed. It later turned into the real bully though, biting and spitting the scales off rabbit in its last hours and chasing the other fish away from food. Maybe its meant to be bully-mic!

When we reached home, ky spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up the sand and stuffs and preparing the tank. When it was set, I thought the fish looked kind of jittery in the tank, then ky asked me to touch the water, he said the motor from the filter seems to have some short circuit! I touched the water with much hesitation and it really did give me a numbing feeling! Omg... I was wondering how the fish must be feeling, being electrocuted from their eyes all the way down... good thing they dont have a pexxx!

So ky sent us to our mum's place and brought the tank back to the fish farm. When he really got everything set, he told me at my mum's place that he's worried the fish will jump out. When we reached home, fu was the first to run to the fish tank and I saw him squatting nearby looking at something on the floor...... sigh... Tiny committed suicide..

It's kindof weird owning pets. Even though they are just fish, there's still a feeling of responsibility. First we were worried that they didnt eat, then we were worried that they overeat, then we were worried we'll find another dead fish when we wake up.. etc etc..

Sad to say, today, only Bulimic and Spotty are left. Rabbit died on the third morning, followed by Bully two days later. Fu wanted to get more but I guess, we'll stick to 2 for a while, to learn more before more fish become victims of our inexperience of owning them!