If you’re reading this, our goldfish is probably dead.

Wait. You didn’t actually know we had a goldfish. I’ll start over.

So we got a goldfish.

We weren’t going to get a goldfish. In fact, my wife is strictly anti-pet, because we have a small enough house as it is, and enough mouths to feed, and if we’re going to get more mouths, then they’d better be the kind of mouths that will
one day grow up and give us nachas, rather than spending their entire existence being fed until we can, um, bury them at sea.

But then this week, my 10-year-old son’s friend gave him a goldfish. At least I think it’s a goldfish. It’s not gold. It’s kind of brown and green. But otherwise it looks like a goldfish.

My son’s friend got it in school or camp or something from his Rebbe. Apparently, this rebbi believes that, as a prize, instead of nosh, he should hand out little bags of responsibility.

The parents refer to him as “the fish rebbi.”

“My son has the fish rebbi,” they’ll say. “My kid behaved, and now I have to run out tonight and buy a bowl before it dies in the bag.”

Because apparently, you can’t keep a goldfish in a bag. Eventually, it breathes in all the oxygen. Well, it doesn’t breathe in all the oxygen, because if it did, it would just be a fish flopping around in a bag of hydrogen.

“Don’t make any sudden movements! The bag is full of hydrogen!”

So my son’s friend came home, on a Friday afternoon, with two goldfish, and he proceeded to kill one of them, that day. Not on purpose.

So he panicked and gave my son the other one.

My son was thrilled. He promptly put it in a container in the backyard, where he figured it would live until the neighborhood cats found it.

So I said, “You can’t leave it outside. Cats love fish.”

So he said, “Fine; I’ll kill it before I come inside.” “NO!”

So I asked my wife. Yes, she doesn’t want pets, but goldfish might be the exception, because they’re not the kind of pet that will scare you by flopping across the kitchen in middle of the night. “Where is it?!” “I think it went under the stove!”

As it turns out, my wife was kind of okay with us bringing it into the house. We figured it’s only a matter of time until it dies, or the kids get bored of it and stop bugging us for pets.

So we brought it inside. Not in that gross outside bucket, though. But it was Friday afternoon, so we weren’t going to run out and buy an officially certified goldfish bowl, when for all we knew the fish was going to die that day from whatever the other fish had.

So we looked around the house and settled on one of those big barrels that you buy pretzels in. We set it up in a prominent place so my son would remember he had it. Not that we had any food for it, nor would we have a chance to buy any before Sunday. So he gave it some challah from the previous week, and miraculously, it lasted through Shabbos. (Whole wheat, if you’re looking for tips.) Though we did notice that it barely moved the entire time, except when we tapped the side of the barrel to make sure it wasn’t dead.

We didn’t know why this was. We didn’t know if it was sitting shiva for the other fish, or if it was disoriented from the horizontal lines on the barrel, or if it was sick. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be black and green.

My son figured it was bored. He wanted us to buy it some friends. But what if this fi sh is antisocial? What if we get it a friend and it’s trapped in a tiny area with him, doing circles around the castle and trying to avoid making the same small talk over and over? “So what’s new?” “You just saw me!” Also, we don’t actually know how the other one died, and I’m not ruling this guy out.

So my son kept begging us to buy an official goldfish bowl, as well as some food. But then I thought, “Maybe we could borrow my parents’ fishbowl!”

My parents had some fish for a while. It’s all my fault, really. They were never going to get me fi sh either, but then my grandmother gave me a tank as a birthday present. So my parents, having no other choice, got me two goldfish, one of which I named Pinchas, because it was Parshas Pinchas, and the other one of which I named Goldie, because it was a goldfish. Though technically, they were both goldfish. Also, I had no idea which was Pinchas and which was Goldie. I’m pretty sure I kept switching. It also didn’t help that, over the years, we had 12 more. We’re out of room here, so To be continued…

Hey, look at that! We’re doing a serialized story! Stay tuned next week for the exciting conclusion: Will the fi sh survive? I guess if it does, it’s not really a conclusion. Also, I may have spoiled the conclusion up front. Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press and Aish.com, among others. He also has five books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].