Down Five

A week ago Sunday,  we got in from evening church services late,  around 9 pm,  and  I noticed my pond needed to be topped off.  I go and put the hose into the stream bed and turn the water on.  While walking away,  I make a mental note to be sure an turn the water off in about 10 minutes.  In the past we used to lose a lot of water on a daily basis because there was a tremendous amount that splashed off the rocks at the top of the waterfall, thankfully that is corrected now.

I love that pond, I have blogged about it before and even published pictures of it recently when I told the story about CC eating the little fishy that I was trying to save from being bullied by the bigger fish.  Yep, I really enjoy the pond.

Around 2 am I woke up to use the bathroom and while sitting on the toilet, half asleep, I realize the annoying sound I was hearing was actually the sound of running water.  I cock my head to the side trying to determine if it's the cheap flapper in the tank of the toilet I am actually sitting on that's leaking water and needs replacing, or if it's the toilet in the other bathroom.

That is when it hits me like a ton of bricks, that's the water hose I hear! Ahhhhhhggggghhhhh!!!!!!!  I practically trip over my own drawers in my haste to get outside as fast as I can to get the hose turned off.  Many thoughts race through my mind while I'm frantically punching the disarm code into the alarm; number one being that I was thankful that at least my memory didn't fail me right then, and I remembered to disarm the alarm.

The last thing I needed was for law enforcement to be dispatched because I had tripped the alarm and there was not a handset to be found  to let them know it was operator error and not an intruder.  We have teenagers in the house and they find it necessary to remove all phones from their charging stations never to be returned.  I don't even know why we have a house phone, we never have enough juice in the handsets for them to do much more than ring annoyingly.  You can't answer them, they go dead the minute you answer them.

I realize that it is highly possible that I had washed my fish completely out of the pond in the overflow of water pouring over the edge, and into the yard.  I was probably gonna step on one in my mad dash to the spigot and end up sliding on it like a banana peel down to the bottom of the yard, break a hip, and lay there till morning because no one can hear me yelling for help.  Maybe I should have tripped the alarm, at least the cops would find me.

Thankfully, I am able to make my way through the yard without incident and get the hose turned off.  I decide that whatever fate has befallen the fish can wait until daylight for me to witness and I trudge back through the yard and go back to bed.  After resetting the security system and sliding back between the sheets Ray turns over and says; "You leave the hose on?"  I grunt in affirmative, and go back to sleep.

When morning came, all four of my remaining fish were belly up in the pond.  Ray comes out onto the porch with his coffee and looks down at me while I'm fishing them out and placing them into a plastic bag and mentions his surprise at they're being dead.  I mumble that I'm pretty sure I drowned them.
I know, how do you drown a fish?  Well, in my pea brain, I felt like the continuous rush of water spilling down on them might have been too much for their poor little gills to handle and they might have been oxygen deprived, and therefore drowned.

Ronnie, a friend of ours, chose at that moment to call on Ray's cell and Ray told him my theory, a little sarcastically I might add.   Ronnie said it was more likely that they were poisoned with the large amount of chlorine going into the pond.  He's probably right, but I still like the look on peoples faces when  I say I drowned my fish.

It was a Monday when I scooped their lifeless bodies out of the pond, and since the garbage man doesn't come until Thursday, I decided to put them in the freezer until the night before, so they wouldn't be stinking up the can outside before trash day.  Well, once again I forgot.
When Abby went into the freezer today to scrounge something up for breakfast, she found my fish instead of Eggo's.  Sigh.....I wonder if I am suffering from dementia?  People will think so if they come to my house and find dead Koi in the freezer!

It may not sound like it, but I AM sad that I killed my fish.  I'm just busy trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Josi has been on a mission to hatch a chick or eleven and the floor of the cage is littered with eggs, eight of which she is currently sitting on.  We have a dog that acts like a porcupine and all you have to do is look at her hard and hair shoots out of her body at an alarming rate.  I still can't figure out why she isn't completely bald at this point.  We have a sugar glider that is really cute, but I am constantly fretting over whether or not she is getting enough calcium.  How did I end up with all these critters?

Abby, forever on the lookout for an opportunity to add to the menagerie was thrilled when Trina called the house yesterday to tell us that she only had two kittens left and we had "better act now" if we didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to have one for our very own.  I told her if a kitten showed up over here I was pretty sure I was gonna end up in divorce court.

Abby was in total disagreement when I told her that the last thing we needed around here was one more animal.  She said; "We are down five since you killed the fish so we got plenty of room."  Lawd, "Down Five"!  I can't wait till she has kids of her own, I'm gonna take them to the pound to adopt a pet every year for their birthday.....

©  2010  Annette Bagley-Martin