My mother has a friend who breeds aquatic beasts for a living. Well, her husband does. My mother’s friend is keen on giving some of these beasts to my daughter.

The three catfish she gave us have all passed away. They did not adapt well to the fish tank…rather, they did not adapt well to the humungous goldfish that inhabit the fish tank. One by one, over the course of three weeks, our catfish became floaters. Cyd has learned the horrible truth about life, that it inevitably comes to an end — more rapidly for some than others. We have said our prayers over the catfish and ceremonially flushed them into the cesspool of eternity.

The two turtles, however, refuse to turn belly-up. Damn them.

Each day, these two turtles (currently measuring about 3″) slam themselves against the plastic prison that is their habitat and climb all over each other for food. We hand-feed them…holding out a reptile pellet until one or the other grabs hold of it. Given their druthers, they’d eat non-stop. But I refuse to spend my entire day holding out pellets for hard-shelled cockroaches.

As if I didn’t have enough to do in my day, I have to clean their habitat, too. But being the practical type I simply take the habitat outside and flush out the old, crapped-in water with fresh water straight from the tap. The turtles get mighty confused when there’s a sudden gush of water spilling over their beloved rocks. Turtles must have high stress thresholds because even this hasn’t killed them off.

They also need their own sunlight, since the sunlight in my house is not intense enough for their tastes. Cyd’s father donated one of his desk lamps to the cause. So every afternoon when I come home I have to flip this lamp on so they can warm their poor, cold bodies. I have toyed with the thought of removing the desk lamp, but I’m not one to let living things suffer no matter how badly I want them to croak.

Right now, in fact, they are swimming in their habitat, their front flipper thingies clawing at the plastic prison, their necks straining above the water, demanding I do the pellet thing. Sigh. It’s not even 7am.

Dammit!