Somewhere under the rainbow

Photo de tattooedfolk

I’ve had quite a few ‘Are you sh!tting me?’ moments the past few days, but this one tops them all. Excuse me one moment while I silently scream my head off – AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

I was out in the mosquito infested backyard a couple of hours ago just as the sun was tidying up his workspace for the day when I noticed beautiful swirly rainbows in the fish pond. I’ve mentioned our wee rectangular concrete slab/fish pond. When we looked at this house 2.5 years ago, the pond was the push E needed to sign his name 50+ times to make the house our own. Four koi, each ~5 inches in length, one solid gold, two orange and white, and one calico. The fish who drove us to Debtville.

Within weeks of moving in, E decided 4 was a no good number, but 5 would bring us luck. So, off to the local pet shop I pranced to fetch another koi. I don’t remember his/her exact color (ooh, past tense…not good)…orange and white, I think. He/she stood his/her ground for a while with the gang, then eventually went missing. Swooped up by a hungry neighborhood cat? Beaten and eaten alive by the Koi Four Gang? We’ll never know. Nonetheless, we were back to four.

Over the next few weeks, Gav, as it was his job to feed the fish twice daily, began telling us he saw a small black fish in with the Koi Four. Yeh, yeh, sure you did, buddy. “No, really, there’s a small black fish out there! Maybe a bird stopped for a drink of water and it fell out of the bird’s mouth.” Highly unlikely.

It took another week or so for me to finally notice. (i think gab was a freshly born, clinging to my being, cherub at the time. have i told you that story? how i didn’t put her down the first 6 weeks of her life? we’ll reminisce on that lovely time in my life another day) Sure enough, there was a teensy black fish along with three more fish babies. Somebody in the pond had gone and gotten knocked up. And, here we were with eight koi.

And, so it had been until the end of this past winter. Somewhere along the way, two of the bigger fish disappeared. Perhaps they sensed Earth’s impending destruction and hurled themselves skyward with the dolphins. Or, maybe the hawk we saw perched on the pond’s edge one morning played a role in their disappearance. That hawk did have shifty eyes. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.

Eight koi fish jumping on the bed. Two fell off and broke their head. Momma called the doctor and the doctor said, “No more koi fish jumping on the bed.”

Six koi is the current population in Rectangular Concrete Fish Pond Town. Which brings me back to the beautiful swirly rainbows over said town.

Yesterday, E and a friend were in the backyard banging their chest changing the oil in a piece of equipment (a pressure washer if you’re really interested…i’m sorry; i knew you weren’t interested). I glanced out the window occasionally, curious if they actually knew what they were doing and also keeping a visual on Gab and her acquisition of mosquito bites aplenty. At one point, I saw the friend swirling some oil around in a container just above the fish pond. You know, just above the fish pond like he might, oh I don’t know, dump said oil in said pond. But, E was standing beside him and took the container from him, then poured the oil in a waste container (2-liter Coke bottle if you’re interested…no? still not interested? yeh, me neither). “Whew,” I said to myself. “I thought he was actually about to toss that into the fish pond.”

Flash forward to beautiful swirly rainbows.

Mother f*cker, it looks like someone has dumped oil in the fish pond!

I walk the perimeter of the pond and the rainbows cover the entire surface. So, I phone E.

You didn’t happen to dump oil in the pond yesterday did you? No? Because there’s a mini-Valdez oil slick happening out back in the pond. How do I know? Beautiful swirly rainbows.

He said he would call his friend.

Now, here we are, the sun’s gone bye-bye for the day, and E just returned home.

Oh, I called So&So. He said he dumped just a tiny bit of oil in the pond. The majority of what he dumped was mostly gasoline.

Deep breath in through your nose. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. And, exhale slowly through your mouth. Unless you’re one of my fish in which case you are PROBABLY DEAD BY NOW.

My Sunday morning will be spent trying to rescue six koi fish from beautiful swirly rainbows.

(i know. i should be out there right now, trying to do something about it. i’m going straight to koi hell for waiting until morn. morn when i mourn.)