Pet Paranoia

Pets bring out the paranoiac in me.

I am not a person prone to anxiety. In fact, I've purposefully induced stress in specific situations--because I work better under stress. I push myself more in those circumstances. And while it sometimes leads to a particularly bad case of wipe-out after the fact, it always produces magnificent results. You may think I'm exaggerating. But I'm not. I am the weird sort of person who thrives on challenge.

Anyway, back to the point at hand: pets bring out the paranoiac in me.

This is another blog (of course) about my friend's fishies. Which (yay!) aren't dead.

But that doesn't stop me from worrying that they are going to die in the next few days. Because even though my senses tell me that the fish are still alive, my memory tells me that I don't have the best track record with people's pets. While I've never killed birds, they've gotten sick on my watch. And more than one fish has met its doom at my hands before.

Not intentionally, mind you--but it has happened nonetheless. Often enough that I pause every time I walk past the fish bowl and they aren't really moving. Which brings me to a question: do fish sleep? Because yesterday, I saw them and I swear I thought they were dead. But then I saw their fins moving. Which brings me to another question: would the fins of fish still being moving in the water after they died?

Just when I think my paranoia has peaked, something new comes up: what if I somehow manage to kill the fish with toxic water? What if I overfeed them and kill them? What if they die from neglect because I didn't play with them enough or watch them enough? (And really, can one play with fishes?? And if so, how would I go about playing with them?)

Also, the fish aren't catching my psychic vibes about how they should be moving every time I pass the bowl. And this morning, when I came back to the apartment after spending the night at my parents', I didn't see the littler fish at first. Which led me to believe it had died, and one of my roommates had probably flushed it down the toilet, or the bigger fish had finally had enough and eaten it . . .

And then I saw it. And the hyperventilating stopped.

From now on, I am only going to look at the fish when I feed them. No matter how guilty I feel. No matter how much I worry. Because so far, they're alive. And they're bound to stay that way. They're the fish that won't die.

And that, for me, is a good thing.