we've added to the family

Mac constantly wants a pet. Like a big dog kind of pet. Which we are not having because a) I don't like inside animals and b) I hear horror stories over and over about traveling with pets to foreign countries every two or three years and c) we live in an apartment (see item a for more clarification if necessary).

A few years ago when we lived in Sao Paulo, Santa brought a betta fish to Mac. Or rather Santa left Mac money and a note that said to go to the pet store and pick out his own betta fish. (I think the pet store where Santa would have been shopping sold out of betta fish right at Christmas - they must be a very popular Christmas gift for apartment-dwelling Paulistanos).

So we went to the pet store and they had two betta fish in the whole store - both in the same tank which I understand is a no-no for betta fish. In case you didn't know, betta fish are fighting fish so naturally if two are in the tank together, they fight. And when anything fights, there's a winner and a loser. We ended up buying the loser.

Why, you might ask?

Because the winner was a female, according to the shopkeeper (how did she know that??) and the loser was a male.

That's all Mac needed to hear. He absolutely did not want a girl fish.

It didn't matter that the girl fish was a magnificent creature with a blue tail that fanned out over what looked like half the tank.

It didn't matter that the boy fish looked like a loser. His tail was all ragged because that girl fish had beaten it right off.

So we took home a very overpriced, beaten-up, bedraggled boy betta, who was promptly named Pedro.

Pedro was the ideal pet. He got fed once a day most days, his water was changed every 4 days unless I forgot it was the fourth day, and he didn't ask for anything else. He didn't care that we didn't make his tank pretty with rocks and fake trees (that I saw as merely an algae-collector that would need extensive cleaning.) I put a mirror up next to his tank because that's what I'd heard you do with bettas to bring out their fighting instincts. Poor Pedro was so glad to be away from his female fighting roommate that he never took the bait and blew up. He was a lovely docile creature who really thrived on neglect.

I gave into having a pet fish because I thought it would be a short-lived affair. We'd buy Pedro, Pedro would live for a couple weeks or maybe a couple months, and then we'd have a solemn toilet-flushing funeral service. We'd be so torn up over our loss that we'd all swear off pets forever because we just couldn't bear to lose a family member again.

Except that Pedro refused to die. I am not proud of this - and please don't report me to PETA - but we sometimes forgot to leave Pedro with a friend when we went out of town so there were some weekends or - gasp! - even a week when he didn't get fed. We always came home expecting him to be belly-up, but Pedro was hearty. I believe that Pedro was so happy to be away from that girl that he could thrive anywhere as long as he wasn't with her. We kept Pedro on a shelf in the kitchen and as I was the one in the kitchen most often, I found myself talking to him like a crazy lady. I really could watch him swim in his little tank for stretches at a time because he became so beautiful. Pedro's tail grew to be more magnificent than his sister's. It was long and wavy and garnet and black. A perfect Gamecock fish for a perfect Gamecock-loving little boy.

We had Pedro for 18 months before it was time to leave Sao Paulo. We said our goodbyes and gave him to a friend to love when we left the country.

We got through the year in SC without an animal pet of any sort, but the drums have started beating around here for a pet. I will not have a guinea pig or any other member of the rat/rodent family; I think birds are disgusting housepets; there's no chance of a cat or dog; and so that leaves us - again - with a fish.

We went to the pet store today to buy a betta, but they were all out. So we bought substitute fish. They're like mini-bettas - we got two because they're not fighters and we didn't want them to be lonely. We even got rocks and a fake tree.

They have been named Nick and Mike. In the store, Nick was the big one and Mike was the little one, but in the car coming home, Mac decided he liked the little one best and as Nick is currently his alter-ego name, Nick became the little one and Mike is the big one. They've been acclimated to their new tank and they're swimming like crazy. I can't tell if they're happy or not, but I'll take it as a good sign that nobody's belly-up yet.

I present the newest Storys - Nick and Mike (or Mike or Nick):