I remember it so well
I'm only really a b3ta newbie, having a lifespan of but four-and-a-half years, but at that time it was blessed relief from living with an awkward girlfriend and her bloody fish tank.

Suzie was a crazy lady, no doubt; she was a professional singer, but given to the most frightening trips of rage. I used to get screamed at on a weekly basis. Best I could do was take it with a blank face and retreat upstairs, leaving her to her fish.

This wasn't any old little goldfish tank, oh no. It was a 'freshwater aquarium', basically a huge trough that took up virtually one side of the lounge. The breadth of a river, it required hours of daily work to keep it spick and span, and had veritable shoals of freshwater fish swimming about in it. The whole contraption was bloody impressive, but also bloody expensive: you needed monitors for salinity, temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen. They were all linked to a laptop with graphs and everything being constantly updated. I had no idea that fish could be digitised.

And when one died? That was the worst. Not only did we have to have a small memorial service in the garden, but we had to sterilise the whole tank in case any diseases had been passed into the water. We lost a Golden Tench one Friday and it cost us nearly the entire weekend, what with the burial, sterilisation and having to go out and buy a replacement.

A very odd business, shopping for fish. We went around to what looked like a normal semi-detached house where the door was opened by this enormous Jamaican bloke with dreads down to his elbows. He looked like the weightlifting version of Cool Runnings (Cool Liftings? I don't know...). We were led into the back garden, which had no grass, no patio, just rows upon rows of giant artificial ponds. After Suzie had selected her fish, it was loaded carefully into a Poly tank (no 'bags from the fairground here'), and we dropped the new tench in carefully in to meet its fellows.

Two days later, there were lots and lots of little black blobs all around the bottom of the Freshwater Aquarium. It seemed that the new fish was really itching to meet all her boy chums and had laid a job-lot of eggs for them. Now, I didn't know this but apparently female fish are supposed to be sold sterile unless otherwise requested. Suzie went nuts. Phone calls to the suddenly-elusive Jamaican gent went unanswered, and she eventually spent a small fortune cleaning out the tank AGAIN, and making sure that she wasn't going to be subject to lots and lots of baby fish that she had no room for. The words 'small fortune' barely encompass the amount that needed to be spent, and she ended up borrowing money off me. Money that she never paid back.

I never found out if she was successful in preventing her fish breeding because I left her. No longer could I bear living with a Harpy Tench Birth Debitor




What?! This IS a QOTW thread, right? At least I didn't do an I Love Horses one!
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Sat 17 Sep 2011, 22:55, 3 replies)

Oh,
for FUCK'S SAKE.

*click*

Worth it.
(Ellinikos contains a source of phenylalanine, Sun 18 Sep 2011, 10:22, closed)

Yay!
Havent witnessed much punnage on here for a while..

Have a click.
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Sun 18 Sep 2011, 16:33, closed)

Wow

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Wed 21 Sep 2011, 18:09, closed)