A Funeral for a Fish

Phelps

September 19, 2009 - March 5, 2011

My fish, Phelps has died and this time it's for real. There were two other times he was about to "swim to the light", but as my mom said: third time's a charm. For a beta fish, he was very old and everyone was surprised whenever I told them how long I had him.

So, in his memory, I will share the story of the second time he almost died:

I had just finished cleaning his bowl and I was ready to put him back in it when he jumped out of the net. I reached to get him out of the sink but when looked, he wasn't there. Standing there a little confused, it took me a few seconds to realize that he slipped down the drain. I never thought he would fit through the tiny hole.

After telling my mom what happened, she went into the bathroom to take off part of the pipe under the sink. We were really hoping he would be in the P-trap (that's the part of piping that looks like a hook) but sadly, he wasn't there.

When my dad came home about an hour later, he went to put the pipe back together and sitting on a towel under the open drain pipe was Phelps. Surprisingly he was still alive. After he was back in his home he swam around more and acted better than ever.

Apparently he was stuck at the top of the piping and didn't get dislodged until no one was looking. It was amazing that he was able to live through a trauma like that.

For a fish he lived a full life and at least he only died of old age this time.

But of course we had to have fish for supper...