Where Goldfish Go To Die!

Like most kids, my children have always wanted pets. My daughter has killed off more goldfish than you could imagine – mostly from over feeding - and a couple of hermit crabs through basic neglect, so you can appreciate my reluctance to get anything like a dog or a cat. Not to mention the fact that my husband has never had pets and generally regards animals as things best left in the woods where they belong. He has gone so far as to threaten to move out should any suddenly appear in our house.

With my daughter, when yet another fish became a floater, I would quickly replace it before she noticed, not wanting to traumatize her at an early age. Between my husband and I, her room became known as " the place where Goldfish go to die!” However, this practice of stealthily replacing her fish became a bit impractical after a while, and so she learned about death.

I think she was about five the first time I explained that her fish wasn’t just floating on it’s back trying to catch a tan, but had in fact died. I broke it as gently as I could and told her we could have a funeral for it if she wanted. We found a small box to put it in, and buried it under the tree in the backyard. When we put the box in the hole we’d dug, I asked her if she wanted to say a few words, maybe say a little prayer? She thought about it for a minute, and then said, “Can I watch Barney now?”

All right, so she’s not the sentimental type. My son on the other hand has always been sensitive, although he’s learning to hide it as he gets older. I think he may hold some kind of record, or close to it, for keeping goldfish alive. He had one for seven years, and he also had a hermit crab that lived for about five years. When his goldfish died he was inconsolable, and I have to admit, he had me sobbing right along with him as we buried it under the tree. Not too long after that, his hermit crab also died, and after a suitable period of mourning, we decided to get another pet.

My husband quickly voted for another goldfish, but my son had always wanted a lizard.
Thinking to myself that it was likely to be the only pet he ever got with four legs, I finally agreed.

I am not ashamed to admit that we were unprepared for all that owning a lizard entailed. In our naiveté, we thought all you needed was a terrarium, food and water. And I have to say, the staff at the pet store really did nothing to disillusion me when we were buying these things.

Everything went swimmingly for a while until summer came along, and with it, air conditioning. I can only hope she didn’t suffer too much as, without a heat source, lizard number one apparently froze to death.

But we learned from our mistakes. After a suitable mourning period, lizard number two arrived, along with a heating pad that attached to the bottom of the terrarium.

I don’t know if you are aware of this, but one of the more disgusting things about lizards is that they eat live food - in our case, crickets. They will also eat mealworms, but this is really just too disturbing to even contemplate. Twice a week, when I was running errands, I would run into the pet store and buy a few crickets. When we decided to take a family vacation, the question naturally arose as to what to do with our lizard? The boy who lived next door was quite happy to come over each day and make sure it had enough water, but I was hesitant to ask him to feed it mid week. It can be tricky to get the crickets in without the lizard getting out and I live in secret fear of it escaping and taking up residence in the plumbing.

And so, we went to the pet store to ask for advice. The very helpful staff member told me that you can put in a whole week's worth of crickets with the lizard, no problem. That is a direct quote by the way, “No problem”. So that is what we did. Instead of the typical five or six, we dumped in an even dozen before we left on holiday.

When we returned one week later, there was a note taped to the front door of our house with the words “Read before you go in” written on the envelope. Somehow, I just knew that couldn’t be good. The neighbour was sad to report that during the night, on the day we left, the crickets had apparently staged a coup and not only taken over the terrarium, but had actually attacked and killed the lizard! My son took the news better than I expected, but we were again faced with a question: were we really up for lizard number three?

Before we went to the pet store (not that same one – I learned my lesson there, thank you!) I sat down with my son and explained that if we did get another lizard, this was going to be it. Not only was it getting expensive – not quite the same thing as replacing goldfish – but it was all getting to be a bit much. He said he understood.

Going to a different pet store across town, I explained the whole lizard saga to date. The clerk was quite sympathetic and a little bit horrified when I told her we put a dozen crickets in at once with our lizard. Apparently everyone knows you can’t do that! Now, the first two, both females, were of the same variety, which we particularly chose after talking to the staff at the pet store because they were supposed to be non aggressive and didn’t jump much – a good thing when you don’t want them escaping into your plumbing. This store didn’t have the same kind, but offered up instead a green anole. It was about the same size as the first two, and a beautiful shade of green. When I hesitated, she assured me that green anoles were very docile – you could play with them if you wanted to and, they don’t jump! She added that she also only ever sold females because they were even more docile than the males. So, with our new female green anole in an empty margarine container, we headed home.

When we got there, my son was all set to run up to his room and deposit the new lizard in the tank. I stopped him and told him to bring the terrarium out to the garage and we would put her in there. We were all set. The terrarium was sitting on top of the workbench at the back of the garage, my son lifted the lid and I opened the margarine container to tip in the lizard while my daughter watched from a distance. Clockwork. Except that the lizard looked up at me for a split second, then performed a move that would make any Olympic high jumper proud, and landed on my foot! Before anyone could react, she scampered off my foot and under the workbench. Two things happened at this point; my daughter started screaming because the lizard was loose and my son looked like he was about to cry as he watched his last hope of ever owing a pet vanish with a flick of its green tail.

Naturally, my first thought was to leave it there, but my son’s face got to me so I started barking out orders: I told him to shut the garage door so it couldn’t get outside, and turn the lights on, and sent my daughter (still screaming) into the house. I bent down and peered under the workbench and could just make it out cowering in the furthest corner. So, I did what any woman in a pencil skirt and black suede pumps would do in this situation – I put on my gardening gloves, got down on the garage floor, and wiggled under the workbench. I knew if I thought about it too long I would never be able to bring myself to touch it, so I just took a deep breath, reached out a gloved hand, and somehow, miraculously got it by the tail.

I wriggled back out, lizard in hand and as I stood up my son was ready with the lid of the terrarium raised. I dropped the lizard in, he slammed the lid, and we both just stood there staring at it for a moment. Suddenly my son was throwing his arms around me, saying, “Mom, you are the best ever”. Honestly, my knees were shaking so hard I really needed to sit down. As I held the door open for him to carry the terrarium back up to his room all I could think was, 'I really need a drink'!

About a month or so after this eventful homecoming, my husband and I were getting ready to go out for the evening when my son came to me quite worried because the anole, which was usually a vibrant green, was quite brown and just didn’t look good. With my husband yelling up the stairs, “Aren’t you ready yet?” Joseph and I went on the Internet to see if we could find out what was wrong with our lizard. To my utter amazement, all signs pointed to her being ‘stressed’. Stressed? The Lizard?

The next day, and about $100.00 later, the lizard had a new, bigger home, a large piece of driftwood to “sun” herself on, and some plants – and was very green indeed!

After the initial ordeal, things remained pretty uneventful for several months, and I admit, I was lulled into a false sense of security. So when my son came to me and said the lizard was lonely and needed a friend, I thought to myself, how bad could it be?

We had surely been through the worst already, we knew what we were doing now, so why not? My only stipulation was that we could only get another female. The last thing I needed was a bunch of baby lizards to worry about!

Saturday came and we went to the pet store. I explained to the staff person that we wanted another green anole but it had to be a female since the one we had now was female. There was a lot of conferring as other staff members were called in to consult on the matter. Various anoles were picked up, turned sideways and upside down and finally one was produced for our approval. The clerk said that while she could not say with one hundred percent certainty that the lizard she was holding was a female, she was as sure as she could get. I asked how she knew – they all looked exactly the same to me – and she explained that females are slighter of build and that males have a red ribbon down their throat that becomes very pronounced when they get near a female. This one had no red on it at all, so we took it home.

As before, my son brought the terrarium out to the garage for the transfer. This was even more nerve wracking than before as we not only had to get the new lizard in, but do so without letting the other one out!

It was choreographed to the last detail and went off without a hitch! Joseph and I bent down to see how our new lizard was reacting to her roommate.

Poor thing, her feet had barely hit the floor of her new home before the old lizard began doing this bizarre swaying, head-bobbing kind of dance and the biggest, reddest, balloon like…thing popped out on his throat. I watched in horror for a moment and my son turned to me waiting to see what I was going to say. I’m ashamed to tell you that I said a few things that I would not normally say in front of my children, but then the hysterical laughter took over and I needed to sit down again.

It has been two weeks. My daughter, who had never before taken the slightest interest in the lizard, now feels compelled to check daily and report back: “They’re doing it again!”

My son and his friend have been on the Internet excitedly researching how to breed green anoles! They are hopeful that we could see eggs in as little as two weeks. They said when the babies are born, I could be their Grandma! I informed them that was not funny!