Yesterday after I got home from the chiropractor I was, as per usual, sitting at the computer working on a picture and listening to music, which is why it took me so long to notice that my cell phone as in the kitchen ringing.
By the time I got to it I was too late and the call – from Kathleen – had rolled to voicemail.
I checked the voicemail and learned that Kathleen was “30 seconds away,” so I looked out the window, saw her car, and headed over to open the door.
She had stopped by to give me one of my presents.
This one wasn’t the actual Christmas present, but was, rather, the mysterious “thing” that she’s been referring to ever since I returned from Michigan back in October.
Basically, if things had gone according to plan, when I returned this “thing” would have been waiting in my condo as a surprise for me, but of course, things didn’t go according to plan, so nearly two months later, on the day after Christmas, I finally got the “thing.”
Said thing, is, in fact, a living thing: a Betta fish.
She proceeded to set up its little tank and give me the quick tips she’d picked up from the pet store, and then was on her way as she had places to be.
That just left me and the fish.
Apparently she and Brian felt that there needed to be another living thing in my condo besides me, and apparently that it is a life has some sort of symbolic value in terms of being a gift given to assuage to whatever extent possible my feelings of loss brought on by the death of my father.
I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but, well, I am ungrateful. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, abut the fact that there were no other living things in my place besides myself (and whatever microbes and insects and whatever else happens to be here that I haven’t detected or which are entirely unavoidable) is by design. I chose to be in living thing-free zone.
Of course, that’s precisely why they felt the need to put a living thing in my place. I suppose that the theory is that somehow having to take responsibility for this uninvited guest will initiate some magic transformation and melt my cold, cold, antisocial heart.
I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were them.
And anyway, what would have been wrong with giving me a plant? That’s a living thing, and it does require some amount of care, but is at least slightly more low maintenance.
Still, it’s here now so I guess that until it goes off to fish heaven I’ll do what’s necessary to postpone its departure, though I suspect that it might not make it through the first weekend as I’m sure that it will be very easy to forget to feed it during the brief period before and after work in which I’m actually up and about and doing things.
So far it doesn’t seem to do much. My aquarium screensaver is actually a bit more interesting, and with my high-def, widescreen monitor is much more vibrant and lifelike, and personally, I think that the random fish I drew is much cooler.
Before she left, Kathleen asked me to be sure to let her know what I decide to name it.
Name it? Do people actually name fish? What for?
Still, I suppose I have named my computers (though that’s primarily to identify them on the network), so I guess it’s not so crazy to name a fish.
For a while I thought about calling it “Fish.” Hey, it’s more imaginative than you think: I was going to name after Abe Vigoda’s character on Barney Miller.
Ultimately, though, I decided to give it something more in the way of a designation than a name – it’s long been my assertion that initials are not a name – and call it L.T., which stands for Living Thing.
I have to say that it more than anything it bothers me that there’s a living thing in my condo. It’s not a germ thing, or some weird paranoid fear that it will somehow rise up against me, it’s basically just the thought of something else that’s alive and above the level of complexity of an insect being in my space. It’s like an itch in my brain.
And yes, I know how crazy that sounds.
Still, I suppose I can take comfort in knowing that there’s a life in here that is even less exciting than mine.
And because I don’t enjoy causing suffering and have no inclination toward killing living things – no matter how much Brian may want to believe that there’s a place in West Virginia where I stack up the bodies of my victims like cordwood – I will, as mentioned, avoid deliberately harming L.T. and will do what I can to ensure that it has a long and ultimately pointless life.
My friend Betts always used to keep fish, though periodically – and I always thought this was strange and cruel – he would get tired of them and kill them, usually by emptying the tank and “drowning” them.
I can’t picture myself doing that.
Speaking of Betts, today is his birthday. So if you actually are still out there somewhere, happy birthday. I hope you’re safe and have found what you needed.
In any case, not much else is going on. Somewhere along the line I suppose I’ll have to take a picture of L.T. and post it here.
(*Scott is the only one likely to get the reference in the title of this post, though even he may not recognize/remember it.)
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