Please Feed the Fish

I'll start by pointing out one of the more basic facets of my life:

I like simple things.

Simple words, simple colors, simple patterns, uncomplicated, basic things. When I pick clothes, I immediately veer away from overpriced t-shirts emblazoned with "BEACH PARTY 1992" which was clearly fashioned some time this century and others titled "CRABBY DICKS LOBSTER HOUSE" which I'm almost certainly doesn't actually exist. I like t-shirts with maybe just a logo on them, or long-sleeve baseball "tees" that are just two colors. Simple. Uncomplicated. I would never wear a "Cosby sweater" or have some crazy hair style. Clean. Smooth. Simple. It's the reason that I keep the dishes out of the sink or clothes off the floor. It's the reason that my car that I practically live in while cold calling and driving all of the state and up to Atlanta is always pretty tidy and devoid of random chotchkies. It's also one of the key principles of sales, "KISS": Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Now that you have a bit of a background, let me get to the point. When I embarked on my perilous mission to write in this every day, I went to my "dashboard" to see what kind of "bling" I could "pimp" my page with. Among the hundreds of little doodads and whoseewhatsits that were available, most were news tickers or stock tickers or sports tickers or potstickers or tick stoppers or placekickers. Basically, none of them were interesting in any way to me or those that might read my blog. But after countless hours (minutes) of in-depth research and analysis (browsing) of hundreds (tens) of possibilities, I finally found a handful (one) that I thought was particularly poignant and applicable to my page.

A fish feeder.

As you'll no doubt notice, at the top of my page are five adorable, colorful fish milling about in their html banner home. You may say, "But wait! I only see four!" Ah, but this is only an illusion my friend. There are five fish, but I'll leave it to you to figure out where the fifth one actually is. You see, fish are very uncomplicated, simple creatures. They basically just want to eat and to swim around aimlessly. When have you seen a fish do anything halfway productive? Build anything? You haven't, because they don't. When you think about all the magnificent creatures of the oceans and rivers of God's great world, all of them are designed to be able to eat or reproduce effectively. The fish that looks like a rock? Helps him get closer to food without them spotting him. The fish the little glow-stick hanging in front of his face? Attracts other smaller, stupider fish like a stupid-fish magnet. Sharks? Dozens of rows of teeth so that when they lose them when they get stuck in their food, they don't have to wait for their new, "adult" shark teeth to grow in. Simple. Uncomplicated.

The first pet that I ever really had on my own was my first year of college when Brandon and I found what we deemed either a popcorn machine or a fish tank in the break room of Forrest Hall. Since we determined that a popcorn machine would have come complete with working parts, a butter dispenser, and at least a moderate stock of kernels, a fish tank was the only other viable alternative. Henceforth, we set about purchasing fish from the local fishery (Wal-Mart). When those quickly died, we took them back within the 72-hour return policy period and got another batch. When those were wiped out within about 18-hours, we took them back and got another fresh round. When those gave up hope before the sun went down, we took them back and heard about the fish-disease epidemic that had apparently swept through the Wal-Mart fish tank system in the past week, and we were given five to six brand sparkling new aquatic critters to thrive and survive in our popcorn machine shaped world we had created for them. This round stuck. We had the Japanese Seaman, Jeff Gordon, DooDoo Eater, and others. Later down the road, Brandon's friend John let us know that he had another doodoo eater that was available, and when we went to pick it up, we realized that this was going to easily be the largest fish in our relatively small pond, so we named him Yao.

When college was over, we left the fish tank there and Brandon took the surviving members of the popcorn machine experiment back home to the suburbs of Atlanta, and I left empty handed.

Within the first few months of living with Earnhardt at Plaza Apartments in Tallahassee, I found someone on a message board that I was a part of called "noleweb" that was selling a fish tank with all the equipment included. Meghan and I went to investigate, and from what I remember, I think I was able to score a few N64 games out of the $15 dollar transaction as well. Even though it was a normal 10-gallon tank with no resemblance to anything you might see in a movie-going expedition, I still loved it. I managed to keep several rounds of fish thriving over the years, but none more infamous than the still legendary "Gary Survivor."

After a year of living with Earnhardt, I decided that I wanted to try living on my own, and I subsequently moved into Carolina Square. It was just across the street from my College of Business at FSU, and within walking distance of several fast food establishments that I was sure to acquire diarrhea from in the coming years. Along with my fresh living arrangement, I started with a fresh round of liquid-oxygen breathing life forms. Meghan begrudgingly went along with me on yet another trip to the highest quality purveyor of fish and fish-related needs, Wal-Mart, and looked on in a mix of disappointment and exasperation as I purchased six goldfish of varying shapes and breeds and one doodoo eater. On the way home, as we deliberated on what to name our new high-maintenance squad of water-beasts, I decided that I wanted to name them all the same thing in varying forms.

"Michael? We could do Mike, Mikey, Michael, Michelle..."

"No... what about Bob? Robert, Robbie, Bob, Bobby, Bobbert; there's no shortage of Bobs!"

"Eh... Bob's so... normal..."

We came close to going back to Bob since we could easily rename replacement fish (and trust me, you always end up getting at least one replacement fish within the first couple weeks) with more options than we could any other name-set that we proposed. However, in the end, the winning suggestion was, as everyone now knows: Gary. It was, in no order of importance:

Regular Gary, Gary with two e's (Gerry), Gary with two r's (Garry), Big Gary, Little Gary, and our French companion, Garí.

The whole point of Gary Survivor was to see which of the fish would live the longest. Goldfish typically don't live beyond 6-8 years in a normal tank or bowl, so we didn't have high hopes. The early favorites were naturally Big Gary and Garí since larger fish tend to have an upper hand in fish-life and the French are notorious for being unable to get rid of for good. As time went by, we lost Garry and Regular Gary first. Honestly, it was what we expected. "Garry" makes no sense as a name, and Regular Gary, well, he didn't really have much personality. He was just... Gary. In the end, Big Gary grew to a rather terrifying size, and I believe it started to go to his head. Toward the final days, he started doing constant barrel rolls in the tank, acting like he was Shamu, and really hamming it up for visitors. One day, however, he just stopped rolling, and that turned out to be a much sadder day than I anticipated. It turns out I had grown a pretty strong connection with Big Gary, probably because he was the showboat that I had always secretly hoped to be. We gave him a proper funeral procession and buried him in the bank of the pond behind Meghan's apartment building... It's what he would have wanted.

In the end, it was just DooDoo Eater Cuatro (the fourth installation of doodoo eaters for this particularly batch of fish), Gerry, and, of course, Garí. Gerry was starting to turn a rather concerning shade of orange, and our French friend had a bit of an exposed fish brain, but both seemed like they had sunk in for the final battle. In the end, though, that little French bastard was too much to overcome, and Gerry just narrowly lost out in the game of life, and Garí walked (swam) away the victor. With his title sewn up for good, Garí followed the path of his flushed brothers a couple weeks later, nothing left to play for but pride, and, as we know, the French have very little. DooDoo Eater Cuatro and the tank later went to live with Meghan's brother, Eric, when I moved out to Dallas. In the end, it was for the best.

I haven't had fish since. It turns out that a Golden Retriever, while slightly more complicated and less simple, is a pretty good pet as well. But when I saw that I could have fish again, even though they're just virtual and do nothing but feed on the clicks of food that people drop for them? I knew that it was enough for me. So, in the honor of the Garys and those that came before them... please feed the fish. Thank you.