Well the Goldfish finally did croak! About 3 years ago, the kids came home with a plastic bag full of water, this gold thing swimming around and Grandma snickering in the background. That's right. The kids had been out with Grandma at some bazaar and of course the kids go "Oh, we'd like one of those. We'll feed it and take care of it. Honest." Of course, Grandma says, "Well, we'll just get that little sucker and your parents can figure out later what to put it in." Mom and Dad rolled their eyes when the kids showed up with their bag of Gold. "What can we put the fish in, Mom?" Dad's thinking, "Really need to flush that toilet about now!" We wound up with the typical fish bowl, fish food, fish net, fish rocks, fake fish plants and fish poop. Mom and Dad fed the fish, cleaned the bowl and hoped they lived to be Grandparents so they could return the favors bestowed on them.

The fish bowl was cleaned when the water was so murky you had to stick your hand in the bowl to see if you felt anything moving. This seemed to work fine for the Goldfish. He kept growing and got to be pretty friendly as far as Goldfish go. The cats took a liking to him also. Why drink out of your own bowl when you can lap up a big drink out of the fishbowl? The cats were curious and occasionally touched the water with a paw. The Goldfish thought this was great sport and became so enchanted with the feline attention that he started coming to the surface as the cats drank from his bowl. We always meant to set up the video camera and capture three cats lapping water with a Goldfish circling just under their tongues. Never got the chance.

Shari cleaned the bowl, put the Goldfish back in and that's when Dad noticed Chance the cat perched above the bowl with one paw raised in striking position. And that's when Dad noticed that the Goldfish was on its side at the top of the bowl. Goldfish don't normally swim in that position. Turned out that the cat's paw wasn't wet. We figure the water was just too clean for the fish to handle and he up and croaked. We figure Chance was just trying to revive the fish. Pretty smart cat!