So, since I was never able to really post about Godfrey - blogger=posessed! - I will take the time to briefly mourn his passing. Godfrey indeed became sickly as his namesake was. Suddenly on Friday morning he started to hang out at the bottom of the tank and would not move a whole lot. It was kind of freaky and I frequently thought he was dead. Michael would not give in so easily. On Saturday morning we found him floating around at the bottom of the tank. He swam around for a while and looked like he was feeling much better...aside from the mold growing on him. Yup, there was some sort of freaky white mold growing on him. It was gross. We went back to the red-nosed proprietress of Aquatic Pets and she gave us some salt for the aquarium and an almond leaf for the tank. She assured us that putting him some salt would make him all better. Well, it made him all dead. Moments after we had released him from the saltwater bath, he plunked down, nose-first into the depths of the tank. He took some rattling final breaths - Michael assured me this was normal and expected and that he would be fine; I knew better - and then stopped moving. I gently tugged his tail so that he would move to the top of the tank and possibly revive, but alas, his little sickly unemployed amateur fishlife was over. It was sad. Then we flushed him unceremoniously down the toilet. The first of many disposable pets. Sophie was at Grammy's house thankfully while all of this was happening. She came home to an empty tank and was somewhat confused as to why Godfrey was no longer there even though she continued to talk to him. Well, since she's only a toddler, we thought, Hey, we can fool her. We'll just buy another one, call him Godfrey II and be done with it. Woohoo! We're brilliant and we're engaging in one of the oldest parenting scams in history - along with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and free lunch. Alas, after we brought home the brilliant blue and purple fish (and four tiny little zebra fish to help the tank funk up properly) we started to call him Godfrey. "Look, Sophie, Godfrey is back from vacation and he's gotten a tan. Say, 'Hi, Godfrey'." She often said hi to godfrey in the best way she could. Well, she said hi, but there was no godfrey following it. Instead she said her weird word for fish and pointed to him. Damn! There was no fooling her keen eyes. I decided he looked a bit like Marlon Brando and we dubbed him thus. So, now we have Brando and the four zebra fish: Woody, Jessie, Jack and Sally. Brendon was right...I am sort of starting to resent the fish. Brando is much healthier than Godfrey ever was...maybe instead of getting sickly, Brando will just get fat and do weird things. If he starts wearing mu-mus and buys a desert island, I'm out of here.
