Washed Down the Drain

This morning I’m sitting on the couch enjoying coffee and the quiet. I hear glass tumbling over, water and gravel pouring into the bathroom sink. Jilly, our cat, darts out of the bathroom. I know it’s the fishbowl. I run in to check it out. The bowl is on its side, dripping into the sink, no Fire Fish in sight. He had been washed down the drain.

Kay gets up to see what’s going on. She can’t stop laughing, and I’m shushing her because I don’t want Elyse to know her fish was washed down the drain until after school. I put what is left of the gravel back in the bowl, refill it with water, and put it back in its spot, hoping Elyse doesn’t notice the missing fish.

A little later, Kay whispers that she shined a light down the drain and could see Fire Fish swimming down there. So I take the elbow off the drainpipe and dump it into a recycled Cool Whip bowl. No Fire Fish! I look down inside the pipe and see he’s plastered to the inside. I beat the pipe off the side of the Cool Whip bowl, and Fire Fish plops out, soap scum water and all. I scoop him up with the net and put him back in his bowl. He swims around all cool, like nothing happened.

Kay is still laughing, saying we live in a cartoon because that was a scene straight out of Finding Nemo. Only Fire Fish didn’t make it to the ocean, he got put back in his bowl.

All the commotion wakes Elyse, and Kay tells her what happened. She still cries for another fish because Fire Fish will surely die.