This past weekend I was in a wedding.

At the reception, there were fish.

The theme of the night was beach, so the place was adorned with little bowls containing flowers, seashells, sand and – well – fish. Each table had a couple of goldfish in them. (Or as they were referred to at the wedding, feeder fish. You know, the kind you feed to your carnivore pets.)

The fish were probably about twenty-cents a piece. But hey, they did the trick. It looked nice with all the fish swimming around.

Toward the end of the night though, we (my wife and I) noticed fish disappearing.

It was mentioned by word-of-mouth that everyone could take some home, but I don’t think too many people got the memo.

So, I heard everything from fish being flushed down the toilets to – quite possible – getting tossed down the sink when it was all over.

I’m not blaming anyone in particular for the mishap. Again, the intention was for people to take them home. Somehow though, we heard a lot of people didn’t realize that they could. And when the cleaning crew there was itching to get out of the reception hall on a Saturday night, apparently fishes lives don’t matter much.

Fish – especially these twenty-cent “feeder” goldfish – don’t have an easy life. I guess if it’s not partaking in a wedding, it’s being devoured by a snake, piranha or some other not-so-pleasant ending.

We decided to save a couple.

Besides the fact that I wanted to get some fish at some point anyway, we figured they would make great entertainment for our cat, Tiger (as long as she didn’t eat the entertainment).

Long story short, again, we brought back a couple of fish. I know of only four other fish that were brought home. The rest (gulp), well, I don’t want to know.

I knew the vase they were in was too small for them, so I went to the pet store the next day and picked up a bowl.

I noticed today though that they seemed pretty unhappy. Restless, gulping like crazy and so-forth.

I’m a sucker when it comes to my pets. I take GREAT care of them. I mean, everyone should, right? I just think if you want to own one you have to go to the extreme for it. Ask Tiger. She has it very well.

Being a concerned new fish owner, I did some research online on what is best for goldfish.

Turns out, they are miserable in bowls. Bowls are not meant for these type of fish. In fact, goldfish are one of the more complicated to take care of breeds. They are a bit messy. And need a minimum of a 10-gallon tank to really be happy and survive for awhile. If taken care of right though, a goldfish can live up to 20 + years. I had no clue….

Above: Tiger getting familiar with the new arrivals and contemplating knocking over the new bowl.

That being said, we decided to ditch the new bowl and went and found a pretty decent tank with all the fixings. And we got all the bonues to go with it such as chlorine remover, filter and even some decorations to perk-up their tank.

Above: The new pad.

It’s the weirdest thing – and some of you will think I’m crazy for believing this – but I can tell they’re happier now. It’s almost as if they realized how good they have it compared to 48 hours ago when their buddies were probably being flushed. All I can say is they’re swimming more joyfully and seem to have a ‘nice’ aura about them compared to even this morning in that small bowl. I know…I know. “They’re fish, Nate. Really.” Whatever…

Twenty-cents or not, the price you pay for a fish doesn’t place value on them. I like having them here even more-so if I bought a hundred dollar guppy (is there such thing?).

We named them Bonnie and Clyde. Just like Bonnie and Clyde eluded police capture for awhile and escaped imprisonment, our fish escaped the wedding.

Hopefully our fish will die of old age and not get shot like the human version (or flushed).