Daniel Johnson
Art Editor
Instead of providing my girlfriend with flowers for Valentine’s Day I had decided to give her a fish. I figured it’s just as romantic as roses and much less cliché. So with high hopes in mind I set out for Petco.
I had hardly started and there were already a slew of mistakes made. The first mistake was the decision that fish are as romantic as roses, which they aren’t. I understood that all of Valentine’s Day was cliché, which is obvious. The point I missed was that every girl dreams of the cliché. A misguided friend gave his girlfriend a cabbage to symbolize his love. Novel idea but needless to say they broke up two weeks later. My second mistake was going to Petco.
Petco manages to hire some of the most amazing personnel. Most of the time they are the same breed of idiots that populate Kinkos and Radio Shack and this time was no exception. The Valentine’s Day fish I had in mind lives in a symbiotic relationship with a bamboo plant. The plant lives in the top of the vase and the fish lives in the bottom, providing the nutrients that the plant needs in exchange for nibbling some of the plant’s roots. It is a perfect little ecosystem and the perfect Valentine’s Day present.
Once in the fish section, I interrupted what seemed to be a delicate procedure. One employee had his forearm in the tank and was trying to grasp a specific fish with his hand. I finally collected myself and drew my eyes away from the barehanded, fish-grabbing debacle to my left and spoke: “I would like a bamboo fish.” I said with confidence.
“We don’t have it,” he replied coldly. He was about to return to his fish officiating when I explained that “Bamboo Fish” was probably not the actual name of the fish, simply an arbitrary name chosen by myself. Then I went into detail about the nature of this fish.
“You know,” answered the clerk with a moronic guffaw, “fish aren’t usually named by what they eat or else there would be a lot of fish named “Algae” and “Smaller fish.” But I think that there is a Chinese Bamboo Mackerel (or some equally absurd name). I can have it special-ordered for you.” All of this was accomplished by a flurry of intense computing and silent bitter mocking. But his next words snapped me out of my revelry.
“It would take about two weeks, and cost approximately $900 dollars including shipping, and no, it will ship from our fish depot in Tampa, Fla.”
Now you would think that after my extensive explanation of the nature of this fish that this person would understand my fish needs but before I could raise my voice in protest I was holding a pink sales receipt.
After arguing about the semantics involved in fish purchasing, the sales clerk strode back to the computer muttering about Valentine’s Day. The moral of the story is this: don’t be too resentful on Valentine’s Day, carry your resentment throughout the year. A constant level of bitterness is best so that it doesn’t build up and overwhelm someone on a single day.
His comrade who was still trying to catch a fish with his hand responded with a “Worst day of the year” remark when I finally asked: “Why don’t you use a net?” They both looked at me with cold puzzled looks of bewilderment. “The net?” I pointed at one of the many classic green fish nets nestled next to the goldfish.
The pair looked perplexed until the one now with what seemed to be half of his body in the tank, still trying to corner the aberrant fish with his hand, spoke: “For someone interested in a Chinese Bamboo Mackerel you sure don’t know very much about fish.”
2-10-2005