5 cent fish

Nothing says "I'm old!" more than beginning every story with saying, "years ago.......". So instead I'll tell it like this: Once upon a time (does that help?) I was at a party (and so PETA doesn't come knocking at my door we'll skip to the part) where everyone took home bags of goldfish left over from a (non-deliberately traumatic for gold-fish) game. I had around thirteen lovely long-flowy fin goldfish, they were sold as feeder fish from a pet shop, which means they are meant to be fed to other creatures. Immediately after I got home and set up an aquarium, I began reading about goldfish. The next day I bought all the things I'd need for them. You know how that is? It adds up quick and I was buying all this stuff for what probably amounted to less than $2 worth of fish. BUT they were so beautiful. However these fish, because they were just bred for food, weren't in the best health and had a disease called ick. Ick it was!! Ick is where there are these white spots on the fish that, basically, feed on the fish. Anyways, I successfully treated that after losing several fish. I even learned how to cure something called bent-fish. Eventually, we finally realized after days of research and all the fish died, that our water was poisoning them because of the type of softener salt we used in our hard water. We realized that WE probably shouldn't be drinking water with that salt in it when it had a toxic additive (maybe those fish were our canaries in the mine). Later I visited my mom, she still had a fish left and she didn't want it though she'd bought supplies to take care of it. (My family is freakishly compassionate.) So I took this plain, little, orange, short finned, goldfish and gave him a home. The kids were very small and I knew they would appreciate him. We named him Gorton (after Gorton's frozen fish), he is at least seven years old now...................was that a boring story or what? Anyways, yesterday we stopped by a thrift store and saw a like-new twenty gallon hexagon tank and stand. LUCKY, LUCKY Gorton!! His current tank needed to be replaced or repaired with new sealant and I've read goldfish require much more space than other fish (even up to ten gallons per inch of fish). So the little moocher gets a new $50 tank (which was a great deal). The irony here is that I never buy myself anything and I buy this 5-cent-fish a nice new tank..................what's with that?! I don't even like the color orange! At least he's only half orange now because they sometimes change to white with age. Soooo, yesterday I picked up this unexpected project. I'll be painting the stand that goes to his tank. It is veneered in a super glossy black plastic. I've already sanded it but think it'll be best to use a spray paint intended for plastic. No offense to stark black or anything, it's just I don't have black accents around my house. (Though I do have a beat up black piano long overdo for a makeover...that's another project for another week.) I'll let you know how it all works out, though I have my doubts about a paint finishes ability to hold up against the moisture that will come from the tank. Now that he'll be in a bigger tank I have considered breeding him so that the kids can experience baby fish. Though, I've not considered that too much yet and haven't looked for the lucky lady. I think he'll be pretty embarrassed at my bringing it up. Maybe I'll mention it to Gorton after he's done gloating about his new tank...the little moocher.....