Fishing Expedition

As a surprise, I took the girls to Petco today to buy two little goldfish and a simple glass goldfish bowl -- like I had when I was a young girl. I told them what the plan was when we were in the car, driving to the store -- they were SO excited! My girls have been asking my husband and I for a dog for about a year now. We are (ok, I am) not ready for a dog at this point in time -- we have set a date for after our youngest is 5 to get a dog. But the fish idea came to me after my girls took two Rubbermaid bowls and filled them with water and various little plastic toys, and pretended for a week that they were pets... Mind you, we have a cat, but she's not really fond of people and really only likes my husband. Anyway, it was watching my children play with imaginary pets that made me think, "Hey, why don't we try getting a fish!"

So, off we went to Petco for a simple little surprise. The store is about 5 minutes from our house, I thought we'd be in and out in no time. But, no. First, it was pet adoption day and they had all sorts of dogs there -- great! We watched the dogs and then I was able to steer them back toward the fish. No staff was anywhere in sight to help us, so we went around and around looking at fish, picking out that colored gravel for the bowl, fake plants, and then on to the bowls themselves. And then I thought again about the cat that we own. And the horror of her eating one of my girls' fish... So we jumped from simple bowl with no lid, to small tank with a filter and a light. And then we got distracted by my 3-year-old's utter enchantment with a turtle -- she LOVED this turtle! She may be getting one for her birthday -- we'll see. Finally -- look, there's a salesperson! We grabbed her quickly before she could get away, and I told her that I was just looking to get two goldfish and this little tank (2 gallon). And she said, "Oh, you can't put two fish in that little tank!" Really? Because I'm sure when I was a kid I had 2 goldfish in one of those round bowls over there -- that's what we came in for... "OH, no! Things have changed a LOT since you were a kid!" REALLY? FISH have changed that much, you say? She tells me that I need a 5 gallon tank for two goldfish, unless I want to get two smaller tanks. And of course, the girls hear that and say, "We want our own tanks!" Uh huh. Actually, it was cheaper to get two tanks than to get one 5 gallon, so we went with that! So, $85 and two fish later, I have two VERY happy girls! (I'm hoping this will buy us some time on the dog...) ;)