Almost down the drain

We have a pet fish - a beta. His name is fishy - but previously his name was E-mail and I'm certain there have been a few other names as well.

We've had him for a while - a year maybe? I purposely got a beta because they require little to no maintenance other than feeding. The sales guy at PetSmart assured me that these fish lived in very muddy, murky water and for that reason didn't really mind it if I happened to not change the water for a few weeks at a time.

Well - it's been more than a few weeks - in fact it's probably been about 4 months since I last really cleaned out the vase where he lives with his blue, glass rocks. I've added water when the levels got a little low and fed him every few days, but I must say that it's started to look a little gross lately.

So this afternoon I decided to change the water and give everything a nice rinsing.

Now if you've ever tried to catch a beta in your little fish net you know that they are tricky little things to get and prone to jumping.

So imagine my shock to see my little guy project himself out of the net and into the garbage disposal as I was trying to put him back into his now clean environment!

My girlfriend Angel was watching me as it happened and she laughed quite a bit - thankfully the girls were playing nicely and weren't there to witness me dumping the fish down the drain into the garbage disposal!

I dread my garbage disposal - it's the most disgusting thing in my house and no matter how much I scrub it and bleach it - it still amasses this congealed black slime that stinks awfully. 

It's also ancient and in need of replacement - and I was NOT thrilled about sticking my hand down it to hopefully rescue the fish.

(sidenote: the guy at the store also told me how these fish could survive out of water for some time - he was explaining this to me because he had dropped one of the two fish we were buying - oh from about 3 feet - onto the floor. He assured me it would be fine... and it swam for a few weeks before dying, but it was never quite right - i think it sustained brain damage from the fall!)

It took a few minutes, but with Angel's help we located the fish and I thrust my hand into the slimey goo and chased a flopping fish amidst the rotting pasta (that i discovered during the fish rescue - yuck!)

Success came finally and I plopped him back into the vase of clean water - half expecting him to instantly float up to the surface belly up... but he didn't and several hours later he's still alive and seemingly happy in his clean little home.

Whew!