As a house-warming gift, Uncle Scott took us to Petco and let Prince and Princess each pick out a fish. A Betta fish.
Now, I don’t have a good track record with Bettas. I had one in high school and named him Data, from Star Trek. Data the Betta. He wasn’t happy with his life and flung himself toward the light when I removed the top of the tank to feed him. He is in a better place now.
Nevertheless, we took home two tanks and two fish. One was blue, and Prince promptly named him Hank. Thank you very much for THAT particular idea, Uncle Scott, who suggested it to Prince when he was telling a story about a dinosaur and needed a good name for the beast. Now we have Hank the blue fish. Of course Prince’s fish is blue.
And of course Princess’ fish is pink. Or rather, was pink. Bruce, the pink fish, was never very perky and sort of lounged about in his tank. He didn’t last two days. He is now in a better place, too. (We named him Bruce because every time Princess tried to say “fish” she said “beesh,” so we changed it to “Bruce.” Hank and Bruce. But now Bruce is no more.)
Luckily, I’m not the only one who noticed that Betta fish tend to perish rather easily. There was a return policy for Bruce, and this time, Lord Herndon picked out a fiesty red fish. Princess named this one Nemo. From the first time we met him, Nemo was darting around in the water, always checking things out.
Now, because Bruce was so sedentary, he never really bothered Hank. When you have two male Bettas and they see each other, they are supposed to flare up, spread their fins, shake their fists, and flex their muscles. Typical male behavior, right? Well, Bruce was a bit of a wimp and so Hank never needed to flare, spread, shake, or flex anything.
Not so with Nemo. I push the two tanks together, and it’s a war.
