Marie's On The Roof

My goldfish pond is home to one less creature today. Marie, a 3 year old fantail goldfish went belly up this morning. I still have one other fantail, Donny, plus "feeder" goldfish that I rescued from the tank at Wal-Mart, including Nicholas, Natalie, Aunt Susie, Bo and Walmart. I also still have my koi, El Guapo, Whitey, Rojo and Jackson. Doug gave Jackson his name because he was born black then gradually changed colors. Makes sense to me.

Discovering the death of a pet reminded me of a story - most everything does. A local bubba left home for the first time in his life and was going to be gone for about a month. He told his brother that he would be calling home every day to check on his mother, who had not been well and his beloved dog Butch.

The first week or so, everything had gone well. Bubba called every day and his brother assured him that his dog Butch and "Mama" were both fine. Then one day when he called home and asked, as he always did, "how's Butch?" his brother said "Butch died."

Bubba was shocked, and then he got mad. He didn't call home for several days because he was so angry at his brother for being so insensitive. Finally, he called and told his brother how he felt. Bubba said, "listen, stupid, you didn't have to just come out and tell me that Butch was dead. You could have sorta built up to it. You could have made something up to break it to me easy. " "How could I do that?" said his brother. "Well, when I called you could have said that part of the house where Butch slept was on fire but Butch had gotten on the roof - that I shouldn't worry because the fire department was on the way. The next day when I called, you could have said that the firemen had put the fire out and were about to rescue Butch. Then the next day you could have finally broken it to me by saying 'they did everything they could but it was too late and Butch died.' That way I could have been better prepared for it and the news wouldn't have been such a shock. Does that make sence to you?"

"Yes", said his brother, "I understand now." "Alright then" said Bubba, "how's Mama?"

"Well, Mama's on the roof....................."