The Scott Saga

So, we bought Sophie a fishtank for her birthday. She got to go to Petsmart to pick out her fish, and while I tried to point her in the direction of this $5.99 puffy-looking fish, she was particularly drawn to the 27 cent variety goldfish. And she had her eye on a CERTAIN goldfish, which the nice Petsmart employee dutifully caught for her. As soon as he was plopped into the bag, Sophie named him SCOTT. Petsmart Guy lifted the bag and looked at the...I dunno...fishy parts, and told her that it was a girl. She said, "That's okay, his name can be Mrs. Scott." And we took him (her) home. And we loved him/her very much. About three weeks later, he (perhaps she) died.


Hello, my name is Scott. Mrs. Scott. And I am dead...caught in an endless sidestroke beneath my crappy filter that was not strong enough to siphon out my bacteria but seems to enjoy the deathsuck it has on me now.

Not ready to launch into the Circle of Life lecture, Frank and I negotiated the details of the great fish-switch caper, and I returned to Petsmart to search out a Scott look-alike while Frank cleaned out Scott's tank (Scott, of course, was "napping" in the cup waiting for his water to be clean.) And Scott 2.0 became a beloved member of our family. By the way, I asked the Petsmart Girl if the new Scott was male or female (just out of curiosity) and she told me it was very difficult to tell. I agreed, and I did not tell her that Petsmart Guy was a far superior ichthyologist.


Scott 2.0

On Thursday, Scott 2 started swimming diagonally, which seemed like a bad sign to me. By Friday, Scott was skimming the surface, and we decided to tell Sophie that he was dead so that we could get a heartier fish without having to concoct some bizarre story about how Scott had changed color and shape overnight. Apparently, 27 cent goldfish are just not meant to live very long, AND they are very dirty little fish.

Sophie took the news well. I talked about how fish don't live very long, and then told her that Scott had died. Her response: ALREADY??? (If only you knew, Soph....)

We performed the traditional toilet "burial at sea," and she seemed pretty strong about it all. She said a little prayer for him, and told him he had been a good fish. A few minutes later, she asked, "Are we going to die?" Ugh. Why, oh, why did I buy her a stupid fish instead of a Barbie castle or something that would last forever?!? So we had a long talk about how people do die, but they live a lot longer than fish. And when we die, we go to this place called Heaven (and she chimed in with information about God and Jesus, thank you very much Sunday School). We volleyed paradise back and forth -- Sophie prophesies rainbows and purple butterflies everywhere, and she could be right. I told her that the best thing about heaven is that you meet up with everyone you loved on earth, so she would see Scott again, and Gary the Cat (who died before she was two but with whom she is obsessed), and her Nana Jane, and the grandmother she never met. And then, in true Sophie style, she delivered the punchline of our morning mourning.

"But we won't see Scott. Because he is in TOILET HEAVEN." And then she cracked up.