The Fish is Dead. Like Michael Jackson. And Alex’s Grandpa.

NO FISHING! ALSO, DON'T PAINT MY NAILS IVY!

Yesterday I was upstairs with Clyde watching him perform this herky jerky dance he does to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.  It’s hard to watch and is a lot like watching helplessly as someone you love has a seizure.  But instead of rushing to their aid, you’re supposed to clap and sing along like Yay for seizures! Hazel had a friend over and the two of them were in her room playing.  Ivy was downstairs.  Unattended.  I have written about Ivy before.  To recap, she is a lisping Godzilla, a dangerous scissor-wielding cupcake, and after last night, a sociopath.

After Clyde is done with his seizure dance, I go downstairs to check on Ivy.  She passes me in the hall, silently, and I watch her go into the bathroom.  I follow. “What’s up Ivy? What are you doing?” And she kind of looks at me furtively.  She is holding something in her fist and right away I think it’s candy, because she is obsessed with candy and uses any opportunity to find some and eat it secretly in the bathroom like a bulimic.  I look a little closer and see a fish eye looking at me and I realize it’s Goldie the goldfish. “GIVE ME THE FISH!” I shout and start filling up the sink with water.  I throw Goldie in and she’s lifeless and all the while I’m shouting at Ivy, “How did this happen!  Why did you take the fish out!  She can’t breathe!  You killed the fish!” Clyde comes running in, all excited, looks at the lifeless fish in the sink and says gleefully (because he loves when Ivy gets in trouble) “Oh that fish is going to be so mad!”  ”That fish is going to be so dead,” I say.  Clyde’s eyse grow wide and he claps his hands together like it’s all very thrilling. “Like Michael Jackson and Alex’s Grandpa?” he asks.

I hear Hazel and her friend coming downstairs and Clyde goes running to tell them the great news. “Your fish is dead like Michael Jackson!” Hazel goes through all the grief stages in 32 seconds and settles into the acceptance stage, when the fish lifts her tail, which in retrospect was some kind of fishy reflex. But all five of us, crowded into the bathroom, start screaming and shouting like Oh my god get the chest paddle thingys!  She’s alive, she’s alive!  She’s in shock!  The water in the sink is too cold! She needs tank water! Get the tank! Of course the fish does not miraculously come back to life in the fish tank.  So I text Roo (TBZE) the bad news and he writes back simply:  ”I knew one day I would get a text like this.  The only unknown was which pet she would kill first.”

Then it’s time to take Hazel’s friend home, so we get in the car and on the way there, the car is quiet except for the radio and that’s unusual because Ivy is usually jabbering about something. “My legs is broken!” she’ll say randomly or “Can I buy fairy wings!?”  None of what she says makes any kind of sense.  But she’s quiet and I think oh, thank God, she has empathy, she has sympathy, she is not exhibiting the personality traits of a serial killer.  She is quietly sobbing over poor Goldie, remembering Goldie’s eye staring up at her and feeling the full weight of remorse and guilt and loss.  So I glance back to tell her gently that it’s alright and that it’s not her fault and Goldie will go to a better place…and she’s not crying at all.  No.  She’s quiet because she’s doing the robot to Lady Gaga and she’s concentrating on getting the moves right.

Later that night as we’re getting out of the car for pizza, Ivy decides she doesn’t want to wear her skirt over her tights.  She’s been wearing tights as jeans lately.  Not leggings as jeans.  Tights, with the butt seam and the crotch panel and nothing over the top.  I tell her that she needs to wear her skirt. Please just wear your skirt, because we’re in public and the whole tights as jeans thing makes me look lazy, which I am, but not so lazy that I don’t understand that tights are a foundation garment, not a main type of garment. So then there’s a big sobbing fit over having to wear the skirt.  Still no crying for the fish.  But a lot of crying for having to wear something over tights.

When we get home Goldie is still dead and I ask everyone how they want to bury Goldie and everyone agrees the toilet.  Except that earlier that day when Ivy was in the bathroom doing God knows what with the poor fish, she clogged the toilet.  When I go to flush Goldie,  she comes bubbling up towards the rim.  So I have to plunge the toilet just to get Goldie to go down.  Which might top the send-off the dead baby squirrel got last week, when it was picked up by an enormous crow from our front lawn, carried to the roof of the house and peck-eaten.

When the kids are in bed, I notice that there is a nail polish, unscrewed and opened next to Goldie’s tank and because I know Ivy well, I realize that what she was probably trying to do was paint Goldie’s nails and Goldie just wouldn’t stay still. Until of course she stayed still forever.  I’m trying to find comfort in this – the nail polish thing.  Maybe she’ll have a career as a fish groomer.  Or a sniper.  Or a fish grooming sniper.  Whatever, you get the idea.  I guess at least Goldie is with MJ now, and Alex’s grandpa.  RIP you guys.

P.S.  Here’s Ivy’s video response to “Do you feel bad about killing Goldie the goldfish?”  Low low low low low low low low….

P.P.S. If you’re confused about the Cinderella voting on the homepage.  You can read about it all here.

Tagged as: ivy, pets