HomeSpunHealers

“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

~ William Shakespeare

When events happen, there really is no good or bad in them; it’s our own interpretation that puts the spin on it. So, yesterday, when Elvis killed my betta fish, I chose to see it for what it was: a pug happening.

My betta fish, Blue Manchu, was one of a succession of such fish. I can’t even tell you how many I’ve had over the past five years, but so many that I stopped naming them, and each subsequent fish became a replacement for the previous, more of a decoration than a pet. I guess I could say that besides feeding him, cleaning his environment, and saying good morning to him each morning and good night each night before I turned the lights out, I didn’t have much to do with him. I was attached to my second betta fish. He came when I called him, and he had a lot of personality, sashaying around the fish bowl, and building endless bubble nests in the hopes that a female fish would one day appear. I used to talk to him a lot and watch him swim, so when I found him floating upside down in the fish bowl, I actually grieved for him a little. But this most recent fish, and come to think of it, he was the one I’d probably had the longest, held no emotional ties for me. Still, I hated that he had such a tumultuous death.

When I came home from work yesterday, I petted Elvis and Kojak and spent a few minutes with them before I headed to the computer to check my email. They followed me, right on my heels, as usual. They were content to sit and watch me for a few minutes, but then Kojak curled up on his bed by the computer to nap and Elvis went exploring. Sometimes Elvis is akin to my boys when they were much younger, who would decide to drink bleach or carve something with the butcher knife every time I got into a conversation on the phone. They would do things they would never have considered doing when I was with them, watching them. But just let me take a few minutes of rest for a conversation with a friend, and all heck would break loose. Elvis is like that when I’m on the computer for any length of time. I think it’s mostly to get my attention.

So, yesterday as I typed and Kojak napped, Elvis found a ballpoint pen to munch on. When I replaced that with his chewbone, he was only content for a few seconds, and he decided to explore the coffee table in the den. Now, I can see into the den from where I sit at the computer. I saw him get the ballpoint pen from the end table, so it was easy enough to get that from him before any real damage was done to pen or pug. I can see the end of the coffee table, but not the full table. First, I saw him dig the remote control off onto the floor, and I said in my warning voice, “Elvis.” He looked at me for a second and turned back to the table. I heard a spoon clank in a bowl and remembered that Jim had left his ice cream bowl and spoon on the table the night before. Again, in my warning voice, “Elvis.” He didn’t turn around this time, and I heard the bowl thud to the carpeted floor. I figured he’d spend a few minutes licking the empty bowl, so I continued to type, but I didn’t hear any licking noises, just a pawing noise, and only the curled tail of Elvis in sight. He was on his hind legs, which gave him both front paws to explore with, and I decided that he couldn’t really get anything that he could hurt or that could hurt him. Then I remembered the fish.

Blue Manchu’s fish bowl sat in the center of the coffee table on a woven cloth table covering. That fish bowl had sat there for five years, and Kojak never acknowledged that he was even aware there was a fish there at all. Nothing gets by Elvis, though, and the first few days he was with us, he had spotted that fish and leapt onto the coffee table with him, staring pug eye to fish eye. Blue Manchu flared up, and I jumped up and grabbed the fish bowl and yelled, “Elvis! No!” Elvis just looked at me with that pug look and cocked his head to one side. Pugs are so adorable even when they’re being bad. After that first time, he had not bothered the fish again. My first instinct was to move the fish to another location, and if I had only acted on that first instinct, Blue Manchu would be swimming in his bowl in the gated community of the living room where no pugs are allowed. But I don’t always act on my first instinct, though I probably should.

By the time I remembered the fish and rushed to the den, shouting now, “Elvis! No!” he had the corner of the mat in his mouth and was attempting the tablecloth magic trick that I have seen on TV so many times. I should have been able to get there and prevent the accident. I was only three feet away, but as in dreams, everything seemed to start happening in slow motion. I reached out my hands and Elvis pulled the mat, and the fish bowl went over the side of the coffee table, not with a thud as the ice cream bowl had done, but with an explosion! Shattered glass and colored marbles and plastic fish plant and water were scattered on the carpet, but I didn’t see Blue Manchu anywhere. I was on my knees carefully flipping through the debris when I finally saw him lying motionless, but I picked him up by his tail, causing him to flinch and jiggle a little, and I was hopeful as I rushed him to the kitchen and into a glass with some of his bottled spring water over the top of him. He jolted straight to the top of the water. I thought I had saved his life, but I had to rush back to the den to get the glass up before pugs were harmed because pugs will try to eat anything, especially fishy smelling marbles. The pugs had both already tromped through the dangerous mess on my heels on the way into the kitchen, and I warned them back as I began to pick up the largest pieces of the fish bowl and deposit them into the garbage can that I had hauled in from the kitchen. Kojak was standing well back from me and the glass shards, but Elvis was zeroing in on the plastic fish plant, so I barricaded myself from them with Kojak’s little ramp that he uses to get into his favorite chair in the den. That would hold Kojak back permanently, but it did not dissuade Elvis, so I found myself just talking calmy and gently to him, “Elvis, stay back, Baby. This is dangerous. This could hurt you.” And Elvis moved backand stayed clear while he watched me working. I only managed two small cuts on my fingers before I got all except the tiniest pieces of glass into the trash. Then I got the vacuum and got the rest up as well as humanly possible. I searched for any glint of anything that could harm my babies, and satisfied that they couldn’t be further endangered, I examined eight pug paws to make sure they hadn’t been cut. Fortunately, they had successfully avoided any injury.

Back to the kitchen we went to check on Blue Manchu, and we found him lying motionless on the bottom of the glass of water. I could see that one of his fins was almost completely severed, and he had obviously sustained as much damage as the fish bowl. I just quietly and unceremoniously gave him his burial at sea via the commode in the bathroom off the kitchen. Pugs were present, too, paying their final respects, except that they had no idea what I was pouring into the commode and flushing away. All events are equally interesting to a pug because there might be food involved, especially when events happen in or near the kitchen.

All in all, except for the turbulent death of Blue Manchu, no major harm was done. Things could always be worse than what they are, and I was just grateful that I wasn’t making a trip to the vet with pug cuts or ingested shards of glass or marbles. Jim probably put the best spin of all on the event when I informed him that I would need him to help me move the heavy oak coffee table today for another event that will transpire in the den. He just said, “Well, it’ll be easier to move now.”