and the cat came back, the very next day...(cat? catfish? what's the difference?)

monday night, matt heard a crash in the living room. i was asleep and missed it entirely, but he woke me up and asked if i'd heard the same. just to be safe, he went to check to see what fell. no idea. assumed chi-chi was jumping around, and went back to bed...

the next morning, we were about to leave for work... i was saying goodbye to chi-chi when i saw this brown, frayed... *thing* next to her cage. i leaned in, and realized... that the *thing* was pleco.


flashback. when matt moved the 10 gallon to his house from school, he did it before school let out. so sam was left with the tank for a week or two. one night, he heard with splash, followed by some wet thumps. investigation. pleco had jumped out of the tank, caught himself (suctioned himself) onto a surface behind the dresser that the tank was sitting, and was... well, stranded there. they threw him back in the tank, and fortified every exit of the tank: covered all the openings and weighed down all the flaps.


back to semi-present. we'd moved pleco from the 10 to the 30 on sunday, and then he'd apparently jumped out again monday night. around midnight. i found him tuesday morning. about 7:30. he was dried up. the lack of liquid sank his eyes deep into the sockets. the eyeballs were about half the size they were supposed to be. he was moving, but barely. matt asked for a bag to throw him away in, but couldn't do it because he was still "breathing." the other fish in the tank were picking at him (as in... "mmm... fresh food..."), so we put them into convalescent homes (well... the barb went into the convalescent, and lemon went into the net breeder).

it was weird all day. i was so mad at myself for not taking precautions after moving him into the new tank (i'd figured that he tried to escape after the first move because of the water quality change--the move killed yellow and kenyi, the other two fish in the tank at the time of the move). we were planning on buying raphaels--striped and spotted--to clean up the tank, since we couldn't replace him with another pleco.


matt always joked that pleco was going to be his best friend. that he was going to bring him out of the water when he got big enough, and the two of them would watch tv on the couch, like buds. the truth... pleco's the only fish left from the first batch. our first tank. we'd sold the silver dollars and the remaining bala (the other bala disappeared over winter break) back to the store because they'd gotten too big for the tank (you're not allowed to have anything bigger than a 10 on campus). it was a sad day. i cried. not that that says much, but i don't think i was the only one that wanted to. they were our friends. we raised them. we hoped they would be going to good homes.

now this. but, when we got home, he was still alive. in fact, he was better than alive... his eyes had grown back to their original size (though i don't know how well he can see...), and he was moving better. he's peeling now, and parts of his fins are dead (fins grow back... right?), but... it looks like we have a fish that survived outside the tank for... oh, 8 hours or so. we've abused him: he's lived in the most horrible water conditions, he's lived in a 10 gallon from the time he was smaller than my finger until... well, he's probably 7 inches now. in a 10 gal. poor pleco.

we bought him driftwood when we were setting up the 30. i don't know if he likes it much, but he was suctioned to it the last time i saw him before he jumped out of the tank.

i haven't seen his eyes moving around like they used to, but... one step at a time. somehow, he's not dead... he may be a disabled pleco from now on, but he's our pleco.

***

mike & co. showed up yesterday. they had to go to the airport to pick someone up early this morning, so they crashed at our place. we went out for korean bbq with joe and abdullah. back at the apartment, i pulled chi-chi out of her cage (so she could have some exercise so she wouldn't quack everybody awake last night), and mike's brother wanted to hold her. i handed her to him, and she was calm about it. later, when she was running around, he tried to pick her up again (makes sense, right? she let him hold her before...), and she *freaked.* she's an animal of prey and fears being picked up. being held, on the other hand, is fine... (don't ask me).

she spent most of her free time around the "office" area. where there weren't lots of people. when it was time to go home, i grabbed her, and everybody got to pet her... the guys wanted to get a boy chinchilla, make lots of chinchillas, and make a coat...

...

no.

***

matt left this morning at 4:45 or something insane like that. everybody else left at 5:15. when i woke up, my tongue was bleeding.

don't ask me.