Garcia4Art: Pet Mortuary? On Ice

One of the many things that I have come to equate with Taiwan is fish.? It seems that everywhere you turn there are aquariums and fishponds.? Pet fish shops are plentiful and easy to find, and it is normal to see beautiful aquariums in restaurants, offices, classrooms, homes, and bicycle shops. The other day while meandering down a new street in Tainan, we passed a greasy mess of a mechanic shop with car parts strewn in any and every conceivable inch of space.? What was amazing, however, was that perched high on a wall above it all was a 200-gallon aquarium filled with large exotic fish.?

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that over the past month we have acquired a total of eighteen fish and three turtles as gifts from neighbors and friends who are convinced that what the girls need most in their lives are pets...small and quiet, yes, but pets nonetheless.???

When I was a kid, we had aquariums? multiple aquariums.? I recall at one point there were five in our living room, ranging from 30 to 200 gallons in size.? My father, the ever-avid man of the sea, would go scuba diving 50 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico on the weekends.? He constructed his own slurp guns out of PVC and while diving would point the ?gun? at an unsuspecting fish and slurp it up.? It would then go into a gallon sized Ziploc bag until he could transport it home and drop it into one of the tanks. There were never any pet stores involved- just a man, a slurp gun, and Ziploc bags.

Although I still have nightmares of spider crabs and octopi crawling out of the tank at night and finding their way into my bed, my favorite memory involving those aquariums was my last Easter living at home when my Dad put cold hard cash inside of Easter eggs and hid them around the house. The biggest prize was a $50 dollar bill that was oh so strategically hidden under the gravel in the 200-gallon aquarium. Only the bravest of souls was willing to dig deep down amidst the sea creatures to claim that grand prize.? I can?t remember who came away with the biggest booty, but it was by far the best Easter I have had to date.?

So, what does all of this have to do with fish in Taiwan?? Well, as you can imagine, with the amount of live fish being bought and sold here, you might think that there is a high pet fish mortality rate.? And as far as I can see, you would be correct.? Just yesterday, our Kung Fu master was off to the fish store to purchase eight fish, the exact amount to take place of the eight who had just passed away.?

Out of our eighteen fish and three turtles, we now have three fish and one and a half turtles.? (One turtle is on its way out as we speak, so I only count him as half.)? I guess I should ask what the culturally normal thing to do is when pet fish and turtles die, but seeing as I grew up around fish, I do what my Dad did?

I put them in Ziploc bags and stick them in the freezer.?

Isn?t that what everyone does?? If my memory serves me correctly, his excuse was that he might want to paint them some day and this was a good way to preserve their natural beauty.? I recall thinking it was a bit odd to see those beady eyes staring at me each time I opened the freezer for a Popsicle, but after a while it was simply accepted as the normal thing to do.? It was also a great topic of conversation at parties.?

So here I am twenty-two years later with children of my own, and while I have no plans of painting them, the freezer seems like just the perfect place for our former pets.? The girls keep asking when we are going to bury them, and I keep making excuses like? perhaps when the weather is nicer.? I don?t know, maybe it is a comforting reminder of my youth to have former pets in the freezer.?

Call me crazy.?

I think deep down, I am just waiting for them ALL to die so that we can have a mass burial and not have to drag it out.?

Or? maybe I have issues with saying goodbye.?

Or? perhaps I just like passing on quirky family traditions.?

Whatever the case may be, there is an ever-growing pet mortuary in my freezer, and while my family thinks I am a tad off my rocker? that is just fine with me.

It is certainly something I have grown accustomed to.?

(Please insert Kermit the Frog?s voice here)?It?s not that easy? bein? green.?

Source: http://garcia4art.blogspot.com/2012/03/pet-mortuary-on-ice.html

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