I get this request about 3,000 times a day. There was no reason to suspect I was being summoned to view anything more unusual than a Lego spaceship, a wooden-block spaceship or a Pop Tart spaceship. So I ignored him. How was I to know we'd had a death in the family?
"Daddy! Come look! Tibbish is sleeping!"
That's when I realized there was real trouble in the living room. As far as I know, goldfish don't sleep. Or if they do sleep, they don't do it upside-down at the top of the tank. Not even if they're trained Hollywood stunt fish.
We'd purchased Tibbish several days before at Woolworth's. My son liked him because he had a black spot on his back. I liked him because he cost twelve cents. My wife liked him as soon as she was absolved of all care, feeding and aquarium-cleaning duties.
As we headed home, I asked my son what he'd be naming his new pal. He said "Tibbish." At least that's what we thought he'd said. Maybe he was just clearing his throat or burping. Whatever the case, Tibbish it was.
If you've never owned goldfish, I will describe the experience to you in painstaking detail: You buy them, you put them in water, and they die. Not always right away, but soon, and almost always from underfeeding. (All goldfish food boxes bear the huge warning "DO NOT OVERFEED!" But they don't say a damn thing about underfeeding.) Also, goldfish only die when they know their teensy bug-eyed corpses will be discovered by a small child.
"See, Daddy? Tibbish is sleeping!"
"Yes, son," I replied. "He certainly is. Fish don't get more asleep than that."
Sensing that Tibbish would be napping for a while, my son ran off to destroy something in his room. Seizing the moment, I scooped up Tibbish, strolled ever so nonchalantly to the bathroom, held a brief funeral service over the porcelain goldfish depository so conveniently built into every home, and flushed the deceased to fish heaven.
It wasn't until mid-afternoon that my son discovered Tibbish had apparently roused from his snooze, taken a good look at his humble surroundings, and decided he'd be happier elsewhere.
"Daddy! Tibbish is gone!"
"Uh, yes, son. He had to, um, go away."
"Where's Tibbish?"
Now, I probably could have said Elko, Nevada, and that would have been the end of that. Instead I decided to play Sunday-school teacher--a job that suits me almost as well as nuclear physicist.
"Honey, Tibbish was sick, and now Jesus is taking care of him."
"Jesus make Tibbish better?"
"Yes, son."
"Then Tibbish come back?"
"No, sweetheart. Tibbish, er, lives with Jesus now."
"Tibbish MINE! I WANT Tibbish! I DON'T LIKE JESUS!"
Wonderful. Earlier in the hour, my son thought Jesus was a neat guy--neater than Santa Claus, even--who took care of Mommy, Daddy and all his friends. Now I'd convinced the boy that Jesus is someone who skulks around and swipes goldfish from little kids when they aren't looking.
"Daddy, you go to Jesus' house and get Tibbish, all right?"
"Honey, I can't. Jesus lives very far away, up in the sky."
"In the sky? With Luke Skywalker?"
Yikes. "Um, sort of, I guess. Yeah."
"Daddy, you take rocket ship to Jesus' house and get Tibbish, all right?"
Obviously, my son had no difficulty imagining me storming heaven armed with a light sword and a bullhorn. ("All right, Jesus! We've got you surrounded! Let the fish hostage go and come out with your hands up!") I was down to two options: I could try to explain The Great Unknown to a three-year-old, or I could sneak out, buy another twelve-cent goldfish, slip it into the tank, and spend the rest of the day celebrating Tibbish's miraculous return. Call it a weakness, but I find it difficult to pass up any twelve-cent solution.
So, a few hours later: "Honey! Look! Tibbish is back!"
"That not Tibbish. No spot. And that's a baby."
"Say! You're right!" It is possible to fool some of the people some of the time, but it is not possible to fool someone brighter than yourself. "You know, I'll bet Jesus brought you this fish."
"I don't want this fish! I want Tibbish!"
Happily for parents, even bright children have short attention spans. It wasn't long before my son started ignoring Baby just as he'd ignored Tibbish . . . until he found Baby sound asleep in the old, familiar back-float position.
"Daddy, is Jesus going to take Baby now?"
Having learned my lesson, I explained, gently, that Baby wasn't asleep, but dead. As dead as Bambi's mother. As dead as the Wicked Witches of the East and West. As dead as Megalon the giant cockroach monster at the end of Godzilla vs. Megalon. Dead.
My son thought about this for a few moments, then brightened up: "Daddy, Jesus can have him." (I can't help it. Art Linkletter was right. Kids do say the darnedest things.) Together, we removed Baby from the tank, wrapped him in a napkin, went outside and gave him a proper burial in the garden. Flash-forward eight months. My son hasn't said another word about Baby. But he still talks about rescuing Tibbish from that fishnaping Jesus character.
"Daddy, you take rocket ship to Jesus' house and get Tibbish, all right?"
