I wonder how much money the author of the comic strip “Zits” pulls in? I find this strip profoundly pathetic (as it seemingly caters to the pandering of adolescents at the expense of parents) — as I do “Lido” and a host of other comic strips – which don’t seem to have anything important to contribute to our social fabric. My Times favorites are: “Doonesbury”; “Dilbert”; “La Cucaracha”; “Peanuts”; “Blondie”; “Prickly City”; “Family Circus”; and, “Dennis the Menace” (I miss ‘Boondocks’ and ‘Bloom County,’ while ‘Candorville’ seems to have taken a decidedly ‘private’ turn).
So it is with the same banality and triteness that I view most comic strips – that I write to you about Oliver, our goldfish.
Oliver is our only pet these days. My readers know that the cat disappeared and big dog Scooby died some years back (I have to believe that Scooby’s demise heralded the end of my familial relationship with sons Tyler and Austen, as Scooby was the glue that kept the-three-of-us under a single roof). So “Ollie” is my/our soul pet interest these days.
First off, the reason we named him “Oliver” is because he constantly wants to eat – for those of you familiar with Dickens’ Oliver Twist. And he begs like a goddamned dog – hence the moniker: Oliver the dogfish. I-kid-you-not — everyone who has ever met Oliver agrees with us: this fish makes eye contact with you and wags his tail constantly!
Son Austen has suggested that “That’s a damn big goldfish,” and I’m starting to think that Ollie is a reincarnated relative who’s come to-keep-an-eye-on-me. Actually, he keeps an eye out for Giti as well (since she’s the one who feeds him). When either-one-of-us comes into the dining room (that’s where Ollie’s fish bowl is) he goes gaga trying to get our attention. One day he even jumped out of his bowl in his excitement…he doesn’t do that anymore.
As noted, Giti is responsible for feeding him – because if we both fed him – we’d have A Fish Out of Water scenario (not really, but he could burst [like the hugely fat guy in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life’]). But Ollie definitely did like sharing his bowl with a companion (we thought he might be lonely [we’re not even sure if he’s a he]) – but the companion didn’t last more-than-three-months before Ollie probably gave it a fatal bumping.
Ollie’s already been with us for-a-couple-of-years, and the goldfish literature suggests that he could live up to 17 years – potentially outliving one, or-both-of-us.
And there is something seductive in having another life form seemingly interested in one’s being: I guess that’s why pets are so important to us – whether canine, feline, fish or fowl. I certainly never looked at those pirating squirrels and their repeated raids on my garden as more than useless vermin – particularly when the little bastards taunt me after successful pillaging. I had hoped that our local hawk family would take the little blighters out (since I can’t shoot them because my neighbor feeds them).
And we do have vicarious dog in the form of our neighbors’ Barney and Smokey…still, I wonder which relative has come back to keep a fish eye on me…