Every day the campus community loses another dorm-acceptable sized pet. Sometimes these pets are a college-aged couple’s usually unsuccessful first foray into keeping a living thing alive. Sometimes they are the only option for a lonely student trying to pretend they have a dog. Sometimes people actually like fish.

This tragedy happens every day, as college students fail to nourish themselves properly, let alone another life. However, this week, we mourn one fallen fish in particular.

Fido (Feb. 14-28, 2017):

Fido was a good boy. From the second Fido and I locked eyes in the beta fish section in PetSmart I knew he was the one. He had a colorful tail and a smile in his eyes. My girlfriend and I bought him a log to play in and some decorations for the bowl. While his bowl wasn’t much bigger than a Fishbowl from Orange Crate Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar  — though it wasn’t just a dirty fishbowl from a bar, I swear — he filled it with charm and good vibes.

Every day I would wake up and feed him one pinch of food and a few dried bloodworm snacks. His jaw unhinged when he ate in a pretty freaky way but it was cool. We would usually exchange some banter. I would say, “Who’s a good boy?” and he would look at me through the tank. Then I would finally break and I would say, “you’re a good boy!” He was always good at those suspenseful games.

On his two-week adoption date, I went to feed him and exchange banter in our usual morning routine, but he was nowhere to be found. I didn’t have my contacts in so I squinted around looking at all of the surfaces around the bowl. I couldn’t find him anywhere. After minutes of scoping around, we found him on the floor.

Without knowing how long he had been there, our “we need to keep this living thing alive otherwise, what will people think of us?” instincts kicked in. Oh, also the “we need to keep this thing alive because we love and care for it” instincts kicked in as well. We tossed him back in the tank and watched, with baited breath.

Five minutes later, he started to swim again. It was a miracle. Fido had come back from the dead. Was this biblical? Was our fish the second coming of Jesus? Was this literature-based? Was our fish the undead Fishenstein? Or would Frankenfish be the better pun?

None of these were questions we had to worry about for long. Unfortunately, Fido swam his last swim later that night. Hopefully, he is in a beta place.

He is survived by the other fish in PetSmart that did not get sold to us. A memorial service was held in the bathroom on Feb. 28, as we played his favorite song, “How Far I’ll Go” from the new Disney movie Moana. In lieu of flowers, please remind us to not get another fish, no matter how much we might lie to you and say this is behind us.

Patty Terhune is a senior policy studies and television, radio and film dual major. She misses Fido dearly. Follow her on Twitter @pattyterhune or email her at paterhun@syr.edu.

Published on March 8, 2017 at 10:22 pm