The Things Kids Say

At the big boy age of 3, Clay wanted a pet. And although he was hinting for a dog, we decided to give him a little brother instead. Probably not what he had in mind, but it's worked out well so far.

Nevertheless, the thought of a pet took root in my brain, and I decided that a little dose of responsibility in the form of a fish would be a good lesson for him. Fortunately, my step mother Rose had a betta fish for years that just died (um, I guess it was more fortunate for us than the fish), and she offered us the whole betta fish set up. “Perfect low maintenance pet!”, thought I. We splurged a whole $3.50 on a betta fish Clay named ‘Blue Blue’ (guess what color he was?), and brought him to his new home.

Blue Blue died 3 days later.

Being intrepid parents, we flushed him and went out for another betta fish. Of course, we kept Clay OUT of the loop. I didn’t want to have the life and death conversation with him just yet, and fortunately there were plenty of Blue Blues at the pet store. This time, we splurged and spent $7 for Blue Blue Mach II. And he died a week later. (Really, what did we expect? We spend twice as much for Blue Blue II, so of course he’d only live twice as long!)

At this point, we decided the game was over, and ‘fessed up to Clay. (After all, we could easily go broke on Blue Blues!) He took it really well, and off we went to the bathroom for a watery funeral.

Fast forward a few days to this conversation:

“Daddy, will I die?”

Ugh… I knew he’d ask this sooner or later. I was hoping for later.

“Yes, but not for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, LONG, LONG, LONG time, Clay. You have a lot of living to do before you die.”

“Oh. Then I get flushed down the toilet.”