Finnegan

My daughter desperately wants a pet.

We have a cat but he is not enough. She never got to experience him as a kitten and now he is just a grumpy old man who hates kids and sleeps all day.

Her ideal pet would be a puppy but I have enough small bodies to clean up after and a puppy is not in the cards. If we get a pet, it needs to be a practical pet. A pet that gives back.

Like a chicken.

Anyway, she wants a pet so badly that at the beginning of the year she instigated a request for a pet in her fourth grade classroom. After much coercion, the teacher agreed to a fish. She brought in a bright blue Beta. They named it Finnegan.

I’m not sure how the other fourth graders feel about Finnegan but my daughter loves him. She feeds him most days and occasionally stays in at recess to clean out his tank. Because of her deep affection for Finnegan and her commitment to his care, her teacher allowed her to bring this class fish home for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Finnegan survived our house for three days and now the guy is belly up in his Tupperware travel tank.

Ding, dong the fish is dead, people!

Of course the fish is dead. Because that’s the kind of ridiculous crap that always happens here, just west of Wacky. The fish should have known better. The teacher should have known better. I should have known better.

That little blue back-stroker was cursed from the get go.

And now he's Finne-gone.

My daughter is wandering the house in her dirty pajamas quietly crying over the loss of her dear BFF (Blue Fish Finnegan).

I just sighed the “Mom Sigh”.

So, what do I do now?

Do I send the fish to school in a little cotton ball padded box so that her classmates can say good-bye?

Flush, cremate or bury?

Do I buy a new fish?

Do I buy the same color to help them forget or a new color to distinguish between the old fish and the new fish?

And, most importantly…

Can I call the new fish “Finn-again”?