That's what you get for jumping out of the water

Fish number four - aka Rainbow - is dead. Now officially we did not kill this one. At least I don't think we did. However, as with two of the others, Rainbow met his demise because we cleaned the bowl. Eric and the kids cleaned the bowl last night. Rainbow was placed in another -holding - bowl while his bowl was being cleaned. This morning when I went in to transfer Rainbow - yes you guessed it - he was not in the holding bowl. I checked the clean bowl to see if perhaps Eric had already transferred the fish. No luck. I then froze because the fish could be anywhere. And he could still be alive which meant that as I poked around to find him, he could suddenly flail about and scare the heck out of me. I looked around the top of the dresser next to the bowl. No luck. I glanced at the floor. Saw nothing. I then thought perhaps he flipped behind the dresser and was dreading the thought of having to move it when I finally noticed him on the floor. I quickly jumped back. (I know the fish cannot harm me and if my children were in the room I would have been brave but they were not so I let the grossness of the situation just take over my whole presence. UGH slimy fish) I peered forward to see if he might still be alive. Half hoping he would be - for Olivia's sake - half hoping he wouldn't be - because a dead fish is easier to pick up than a live one. He did not move. So I grabbed a large wad of paper towels - large enough to not feel the fish at all when I picked him up - I picked up Rainbow and queasily jaunted to the bathroom to flush the fish. Now when I dropped him in his body started to twitch. OH MY HE IS STILL ALIVE AND NOW I HAVE TO TRY AND CATCH HIM IN THE TOILET was my first horrific thought. Put while he twitched, he also dropped slowly to the bottom of the toilet. Now I stared at him for a few moments to see if he might revive. I contemplated leaving him for a few minutes just to see what happened. (I once thought a hummingbird that had flown smack into one of our windows was dead but like 10 minutes latter he fluttered to life and was gone.) Visions of Olivia sauntering into the bathroom and discovering the fish in the toilet flashed through my mind so I decided it was time to just flush. The twitches must have been because he was so dry and his fish body was just reacting to the water. So I hit the handle to flush. Now on this toilet - and I never thought I would ever use the word toilet so many times in one post - there is a slight delay. There is a rather annoying noise, a little movement of water and then whoosh. I think the noise might have revived him. His body went up into the swim position and it looks as if he might try and swim against the current. I looked for a cup to try and scoop him back up but then the whoosh. Too late. I spent the next twenty minutes trying to decide - was he alive or was it just the water in the toilet. Well unless he swims back up the pipe I will never know. I really am done with fish. Really. Now I just have to get to Eric before Olivia does to let him know - we are done with fish. By the way, Olivia does not know yet. I am at home with her because she is sick. Well she is mostly recovered but I am being the good mom and keeping her home because she had a fever yesterday. Whatever. Mostly she is going around telling me how I have to bring her things and so stuff for her because she is sick...I am hoping that she is so fixed on being sick that she forgets about the fish until Eric is home.