Letting the cat out of the bag

Friday, 11 January 2008

I have this sister. To preserve her anominity, lets call her Lenny.  Lenny recently became pregnant.  This story is set during the period when Lenny and her husband Lobin  were trying to keep the pregnancy to themselves until the results of all the scary tests were through.

 Anyway - Lenny has at least one son. Let's call him Smiley. Smiley got some fish in a fishtank for his birthday last year.  Smiley was very happy about his present but generally it was Lenny who had to do all the fish-related dirty work such as cleaning the tank and dealing with all the usual fish ailments (i.e. sudden and premature death).  It had been a year since the first batch of fish arrived and Lenny was getting a bit tired of it all. She began to wonder if maybe it was time to rest the fishtank for a while. At this point there were still two fish living in the fish tank. Lets call them Fish 1 and Fish 2.  When Fish 1  succumbed to the rigours of fishtank life Lenny thought that the least she could do for Fish 2 (given she wasn't going to replace Fish1)  was to clean the tank for him to live out the rest of his days in cleanliness. Then the tank could be retired until Smiley could do fish tank maintenance himself.

Lenny carefully put Fish 2 in a bucket. Then she began to clean the tank. Lenny was pregnant though, so tasks like this wore her out quite quickly and she needed to have quick lie down on the couch. Whilst Lenny was resting her aching legs and nursing her headache, Zug-Zug the cat came along and ate Fish 2.  Thus ending the fish dynasty.  Whilst it was an unfortunate and deeply regrettable outcome for Fish 2, it did mean the tank didn't need to be refilled for a while.

Smiley of course, wasn't completely satisfied with the situation and asked for replacement fish. Lenny (looking for any excuse to avoid it) suggested that this wasn't a good idea as the poor fish might be eaten by Zug Zug who had most likely developed a taste for fish straight from the tank.  Smiley said 'well then maybe he could get a puppy instead'.  Lenny (still scrabbling around for reasons to avoid aquiring any new pets and most likely still suffering from a headache) said 'no because then the puppy might grow up and eat Zug-Zug' (She was pregnant too don't forget).  Smiley, getting upset said desperately 'Well what can I get?'. Lenny,  obviously suffering from some sort of  brain-fade as well as pregnancy and probably a headache said 'well how about we try and get a baby instead'.  Smiley, (not thinking things through - he's only 5) said 'yes that sounds like a good idea' and went off to do something else.

And of course the very first thing Smiley said to his Grandmother when he saw her the next day was:

'Zug-Zug ate the fish so we are getting a baby'.   Thus the cat was out of the bag.