She must die I tell you! She must DIE! I cannot bear to have her there every day! Watching us! Looking at us through her filmy algae filled glass and plotting! Oh I know she’s plotting, just as I’m plotting! The question is, who will get who first? Who! Let me tell you now, it will not be me! I shall kill her before she gets the chance! Just you wait and see! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahahaaha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!! Oh dear, I seem to have lost control again. Well, I suppose I’d better explain myself and I shall. Let me start at the beginning.Until a year or two ago I never had anything against fish. I used to have them myself as a child and I liked them well enough. They’ve also always been quite a lovely thing on a plate so by all rights I shouldn’t be having the problem I am having, and I am indeed having a problem. You see, it all started when my mother bought some fish and put them in the dining room (an unusual place for fish I know). She bought Tiger Barbs and a bunch of Black Mollies. Now the Tiger Barbs were and remain, inoffensive, but the Mollies were another story. It didn’t take me long to realize they were not the kind of fish I was used to. Actually, they were just plain disgusting. Over the years I have watched them and grown to detest them. Their lives consist of eating, sucking the poo off each other’s bums, and eating their own babies! Is that not SICK?! I knew then that we would be enemies, but I had no idea that I would soon be gaining an arch nemesis, which as anyone knows is much more a big deal then just an average enemy. It’s not every day one gets an arch nemesis after all, in fact most people are born, live, and die without ever achieving an arch nemesis of their very own. It seems though I was not to be among these lucky people. Oh no, fate had something else in store for me. But I was not to meet said AN (arch nemesis) until later. Until a few weeks ago actually. Before that I was to get to know how truly sick and demented these little fish were.Over the years the fish and I fairly ignored each other, save for me to cast disparaging looks of disapproval at their tank and wonder again at how long the lifespan of the average Mollie was. They bred like rabbits, but the tiny little specks never lasted very long, despite my mother’s efforts. I suppose I should have been sad, but to me it was just preventing more of the disgusting creatures from multiplying. Eventually my mother was able to save a few of the poor little beggars, at which point she put them in a separate tank until they reached the size where we thought they wouldn’t be quite so…edible. Then she put them back in only to discover later her horrible mistake. Let’s just say it was a massacre. Most of the fish were eaten or killed in the ensuing fray. Apparently the parents knew how to take things bite by bite. To say it was gross would be an extreme understatement! There was one sole survivor of this terrible battle. He was rescued before he died, but not before they took half of his body and devoured it, leaving him little more than half a fish with some odd looking bits and sinews hanging out. It was gross. I tend to use that word a lot, but it really is the only word that fits. Except perhaps "totally gross", but that’s two words if you think about it. Actually, even if you don’t think about it it’s still two words so I guess I should have just left it at my first statement. Gross is the only word that fits! Except maybe disgusting come to think about it. Or nasty. Or even just plain icky would work. Gosh, what was I even talking about? Oh yeah! Half eaten fish! Yes indeed he was very much half-eaten and miraculously still alive. He quickly was given his own tank again where he attempted to swim but mostly ended up with his nose in the gravel, trying to swim up but unable to get anywhere with no tail fin. It was really quite tragic, not to mention nasty. My niece came over and peered into it’s tank and she stared at it for several minutes straight, a dumbfounded look on her innocent five year old face. ‘Where’s the rest of it?" She asked in a shell shocked voice. "Come away from the tank Tamsen." Her mother said, fearing the affects of half a fish on a child’s psychology. The unfortunate fish was to die several weeks later at which point the same niece was to look into the tank searchingly and ask, "Where are the fish parts?" We then had to explain that they died. Not an easy thing to explain to a child. I’m sure she’ll need therapy somewhere down the line. I know I do!Despite these disgusting and disturbing happenings, I did not as yet have an arch nemesis. It was soon to come though, in the form of a fish we now call Bertha. I don’t know how it happened, but one of the fish seems to have mutated into a truly sick and disgusting form. She’s SOOOO fat that her scales seem to be on the verge of popping off and look more like spikes. I don’t know why, but spiky things have always been visually offensive to me and inflict a murderous rage upon my soul. Don’t ask me why they just do. My shrink is still trying to figure that out. To look at her fills me with such utter and complete disgust and rage that it’s all I can do to keep from killing her right there. Yes, I know I’m breaking about five animal rights rules just saying that, but I can’t help it. I want to kill her! She’s so gross and offensive that the mere subject of her drives me mad. Tamsen agrees that she’s disturbing, remarking in a voice of horror that Bertha was looking at her and that she was afraid. Smart kid. To fully describe my feelings I will quote a passage from Poe’s "The Tell Tale Heart". I have taken the liberty of changing a few words to better express my current situation, but the tone of the desperate need to murder a creature simply because the way they look grosses you out is one that I very much identify with. So here is the passage:
"True! Nervous-very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them. Above all was the sense of sight acute. I saw all things in the heaven and in the earth. I saw many things in hell. How then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered into my brain; but once conceived it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I tolerated the old fish. She had never wronged me. She had never given me insult. For her meat I had no desire (for she was a very tiny fish). I think it was her scales. Yes it was these! They looked as though they were bursting off her body from her mass amount of fat. Whenever I looked upon them, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees-very gradually-I made up my mind to take the life of the old fish, and thus rid myself of her scales forever!" (End of quote)
Oh NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Travesty! Horrible horrible tragedy! The fish is dead! Bertha is dead! It happened in between my writing of this blog! Now my hatred has been stolen from me and I cannot even complain about her anymore because the awful creature is gone! Of natural causes even! She robbed me the pleasure of plotting her demise! I didn’t even get to try the bunson burner plot! It would have worked I tell you! It would have worked! Now the wretched thing has ruined my beautiful plans! I cannot even vent about her now!! Oh woe is me! Wait! I see it all now! This was all part of her evil wicked plot! She died just to spite me! She did it so that my blog would be ruined! Oh she is a clever girl! Now my entire tirade is spoiled! AAAARRRRGGG!!!! Now I can’t tell you about all my methods of disposal! I was going to try so many things! I can’t tell you about the arrow I was going to shoot from the kitchen, or how I was going to stick a jumper cable in the tank and turn on the car, or how we were going to switch my mother’s chemically treated fish water with extra chlorinated jugs or how I was going to dump all the fish food in the tank. Indeed I had many and numerous plans that shall now never be tested! All spoiled! All of them! Every single one! Oh yes, she really was a clever little fish wasn’t she? A truly worthy opponent. Goodbye my arch nemesis. I shall truly never forget how utterly and completely I hated you.

In memory of Bertha
2004-2006