One Eyed Jack

(This blog entry was written in December 2008)

What weighs 300 pounds and takes 300 pounds to carry it? I’ll give you three hints.

1. It happens just before Christmas. Nope, it’s not Santa hoisting his toy bag into the sled.

2. You often find this in a school. Nope, it’s not the classroom hamster. (And who in their right mind would have a 300 pound-hamster anyway, let alone bring it home?)

3. You can also find this in an office – to calm people down. No it’s not the nitrous oxide machine.

It’s the office fish!

Now you may well be asking yourself why the office fish weigh 300 pounds.

Well, they don’t. They only weigh a few ounces. However, the two aquariums – one 20 gallon, one 10 gallon – weigh ten pounds per gallon of water.

Yep, do the math and you’ve got the 300 el-bees. The 300 pounds carrying it? That’s the combined ideal weights of my hubby and me. Though having just come from our annual church potluck, I expect we were carrying a little extra “avoir-dupois.”

Next question. Why would Laurence agree to help bring the office fish home when all we had to do was swing by every second day and feed them? That is your answer right there.

You see, no matter the temperature, I insist on riding my bike or taking shank’s pony (walking) into the office. Laurence knew that since he, being a teacher, is also off work, he would get cheerily dragged along be it bitter or balmy.

Now I’m not completely unreasonable. I did drain the tanks down so there was only a few inches of water. And we did this on a Sunday evening when no one else was around. It seemed too much like the Monty Python skit about “Eric the Fish” to be taking one’s fish home for the holidays.

Customer: Hello, I would like to buy a fish license, please.

Shopkeeper: A what?

Customer: A license for my pet fish, Eric.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnq96W9jtuw&feature=related for the full sketch

One of the fish is an old timer. He gets his very own tank because the younger goldfish think he is dead and try to eat him. They are members of the carp family after all. “One Eyed Jack” is minus an eye and more than a few silver scales. My husband thinks he is ugly, but I think he’s “distinguished.” (Well, isn’t what we say about aging males who are human?)

Laurence might want to have a little more respect for this mini-carp. Seems some of Jack’s larger brothers are sisters are “takin’ over the neighborhood” in Missouri rivers. So numerous and large are these non-native species – big head and silver carp - that they have been jumping into boats, injuring occupants and damaging the watercraft.

A state biologist was seriously hurt when he was hit in the head by a high-flying giant carp. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb8OmEr7VqI 

Que faire? Well if you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well eat ‘em. And that’s what a number of entrepreneurial fishers are doing. Orion Briney has doubled his income since taking in carp. Briney used to think carp were ugly. "But now, I think they look pretty good," he says.

Hmm… Maybe it’s One-Eyed Jack who should be keeping his lone eye open.

Jan Carrie Steven is a volunteer with Cat Adoption Trust Sudbury (CATS) and the co-ordinator of Small Things: Kitty Boutique and Cat Adoptions. For more information, go to www.smallthings.ca.