Your New, Replaceable Best Friends: Fishy, and Three Bucks

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Summer’s wrapping up. Pretty soon the call to begin hibernation will sound, and I, for one, plan on rewatching all my library movies and switching over to a steady diet of popcorn with nutritional yeast to make up for the mounting overdue fees. The only thing missing from this plan, I decided yesterday, was a constant companion to share it with.  Someone with not a bone of judgment in their body. Someone like…a fish.

Yeah, they’re not furry. They’re not exactly huggable, and they won’t lick your face or eagerly jump on you when you get home.  But they also won’t fill you with the queasiness that comes with knowing you have to pick up their shit, walk them, and dully answer the same questions about their age/dubious pedigree/name/hilarious little habits for the rest of their God-given lives.  Best of all: your new companion is probably somewhere around $2.99, and, I hate to say it, eminently replaceable should it go belly-up.

We picked out Trent and Eileen yesterday at Lucky Ocean Aquarium, a tiny establishment in the Richmond with a hilarious marine mural outside that definitely belongs in a pediatrician’s basement waiting room.  Our aquatic amigos totaled six bucks – definitely less than it takes to ply your neighbor with PBR in hopes of racking up another friend.

Lucky Ocean has a million – yeah, probably really a million – little fellas swimming around for your perusal or purchase, including some scary eely things, big hipster fish sporting ‘staches and neon colors, and countless examples of the fine, humble goldfish, probably the easiest and most budget-friendly choice outside of beta fish, which will duel to the death if you get more than one.

Don’t get me wrong, I should probably never be responsible for another being’s life. But after frantically calling Lucky Ocean five minutes before their closing time (Trent was swimming sideways…) and getting reassured by Steve that a stressful period adjustment was normal, it’s probably safe to say that anyone can be the proud owner of a goldfish or two. Though, as Steve says, it’s bad luck to name them within the first week. Whoops.