Fish Tales.

So.
I think i may be cursed when it comes to owning a fish of any kind.


It started off many moons ago when we used to have a large tank filled with a million fish in our family home. Naturally being a brat of a child i got a small bowl and was allowed to pick one of the fish to keep in my room as a pet.
I did, and i loved this little black fish immensely for a whole week.
Then i found it floating belly up in it's bowl, unawares that it was the beginning of a long and hate-filled relationship with pet fish. (cause of death? I MAY have left the glass bowl on the window sill, in full sunlight.)

Fast forward a few years, my lovely friends decided to gt me two goldfish for my eighteenth birthday, so i had these two cute little fish, a pretty glass bowl, and awesome glittery gravelly stuff at the bottom, it was a perfectly innocent present, really.
These fish lasted two days. TWO DAYS and they were belly up. SO naturally i assumed something on the water, not my newly cursed affiliation with fish-folk, Off to the pet store i trotted - $50 later, two new (better) goldfish, a filter system, water cleansing droplets and a self feeding cube, Laura was under the impression she was now the master of fish kind.
Waking up the next morning to find that the new, (better?) fish were dead caused mass tantrums and tears.
But i still soldiered on, bought new cleaner equipment, a PH neutralising set, new pipes for the filter etc etc etc.
Oh, two more fish also.

These poor buggers didn't last a day, i got home from work to find my mum walking out from the toilet with my empty fish bowl and a sad look on her face.
I even got the "maybe fish just ain't for you Laura" speech. Cue - Fucking two year olds can own goldfish. Why. Cant. I? tantrum.
I'm all class.
BUT NO! i would not give up. I took the whole tank, the crate of fish equipment, blah blah blah to the pet shop, we cleansed, neutralised, aerated that tank to perfection, put in two more fish and away i went.
Four days these little ones lasted. By this time i was torn between having nightmares for creating a Goldfish Holocaust in my room, and the need for a fish to live longer than a week in my presence.
Long LONG story short, i went through FIFTEEN fish before my friend sheepishly admitted that she had bought the gravel from a $2 shop.
Crappy gravel had been poisoning my fish. It wasn't me! I could sleep at night again.
Or could i?

When i moved out for the first time, i sort of went on a pet rampage, one of the pets i purchased was Boogers the Black Moor (those googly eyed bastard fish) I had erased the Great Fish Genocide from my memory and started a fresh, new bowl, new house, new fish-murder free life.
Now Boogers bless him, lasted a month, he was a tank of a fish. His last few remaining days on our noble land he sort of swam in retarded circles, half floating, half desperately trying to scrabble to the bottom of the tank.
A thousand visits to the pet shop later, I think I'm the only person in history to tearfully turn up at the veterinary surgery and ask for my goldfish to be humanly euthanized. (Even the Vet had no idea what was wrong with Boogers).


This time i vowed never to own any sea-life again.
When i moved interstate i thought a little tank would brighten up my room.
The fish were fine, living a happy life for months and months. Then i got itchy feet. Thought that they needed SOMETHING ELSE. So i bought them real plants to aerate said tank.
They liked this, they loved this, they thrived. I was at peace.
Then i thought that they may need SOMETHING MORE. So i bought two cleaner snails, to get rid of tank mould and all those nasty things.
Six days after buying (the aptly names Pogo and Bundy) i came home to find one of the snails happily munching away on the struggling half dead body of fish number one. Fish number two was floating in the corner of the tank with half a head, and a snail doing a cannibalistic slow dance around it. Yes. I had purchased Serial Killer Snails.
When i moved from that place, i refused to take the snails.
(I never touched the tank after they had finished the remains of my beloved pets, they scared me. The only thing i did was buy a lid for the tank to ensure that i would not wake up to find them munching on my brains)

Two weeks ago i got two fish to celebrate me getting a new job and moving into a new house.
Fish number one lasted two days.
Fish two, who i refused to name for a whole week because i was convinced he was going to die, lasted 8 days.
RIP Matthew.

Please make a note of this people.
If i EVER mention that i might be getting a fish, feel free to punch me in the face.
I'm pretty sure i am fishes answer to the black plague.


End Rant.
Woe is me. I really want a fish.