I Suck

My name is Hoover and my drug of choice is Valium. Hear me out. I’m not a junkie fish, but it’s no Mardi Gras here in this glass cell, and things happen. Sometimes fortuitous things. Like the Valium.

First of all, I am completely alone (solitary confinement) because my “owner,” Rodney wants me to get “REALLY big.” When I see him in his jockey shorts in the morning, grossly scratching at himself, I understand his obsession around this; but why is that my problem?

Then there’s the cat, Harold. Your average gray tabby with un-neutered attitude. No, he doesn’t try to catch me although that would be a kinder fate than watching his magnified nasty cat eyes darting around aimlessly, like the eyes of Jeffrey Dahmer.

So I have anxiety, which should come as no surprise. My life exists in a cubicle the size of a small microwave. A dismally "decorated" cubicle, I might add. The fact that I’m not attractive and know the truth about being called “suckermouth catfish” or “common pleco” does nothing for my self image but it is the confinement...the aqua-agoraphobia that really brings me down. And I don’t mean down to the gravel; I rather like the gravel with its succulent bits of algae and debris, but I digress.

When my day begins with a view of Rodney’s crotch smashed up against my fish crib, and ends with Harold licking himself hysterically then stopping mid-lick to freeze his weird and dilated psycho stare upon me, I have panic attacks. Fight or flight. A real no-brainer. I have no company with whom to fight so I flee. But that’s laughable, right? Yes it is. Imagine running from a crazed lunatic in an average sized living room and you will know what it is to swim a meter in my fins. But that’s what I do, and Rodney calls this “The zoomies.” I call it terror.

One evening Rodney was watching NetFlix. I was chillin’ and had just stretched my face around a patch of glass I was saving for the perfect moment. All a sudden, Harold jumped right up against the glass and LICKED across my mouth with his spiky freaky tongue that looked like a puffer fish on a bad trip. My lips deflated and I nearly regurgitated my own heart as I fell off the glass. Afterward, I got “The zoomies” and I knocked over a ridiculous Roman pillar whose “Thud” further scared the shit out of me; in an attempt to hide, I uprooted a hideous red plastic plant.

Here comes Rodney, all yelling at the cat and waving his arms in some maniacal ballet, then abruptly stopped to stare menacingly at me. I had to repeat my centering mantra “Suckermouth catfish are of little or no value as a food fish”, and thank God for Animal Planet for that bit of wisdom. Next thing I know, Rodney is back tankside with a bottle of pills which he smirked over while crumbling a piece of one up in my water. He’d had a few too many beers that night and at first I thought he was poisoning me but after a while, my fins grew limp and my lidless eyes slackened. I hadn’t felt this good since schooling in the sensual waters of Brazil.

So I get the zoomies from time to time. My panic is under control and so is the algae. Tomorrow Rodney is getting a Zebra Pleco female (My princess and playmate) and Harold can kiss my cloaca. My other favorite mantra? “Every pet should have a pet.” Pay close attention to that one.