Road Apples
Oct. 5, 2009

In the meantime she might want to keep an eye on her canary

By Tim Sanders

I found the following shocking item on the Fox News website. It is an AP report, dated September 30, 2009:


Houston Woman Fries and Eats Pet Goldfish After Fight With Husband


PASADENA, Texas – Authorities say a Houston-area woman who was burned up at her former common-law husband fried their pet goldfish and ate some of them.
Pasadena police say it’s a civil matter and no charges will be filed. The seven goldfish were purchased together by the couple during happier times.

 Police spokesman Vance Mitchell says the man reported on Saturday that the woman took the goldfish from his apartment.

Mitchell says the two argued earlier about some jewelry the man had given her but took back. She wanted the jewelry returned.
Officers who were dispatched to the woman’s home arrived to find four fried goldfish on a plate. The woman said she already ate the other three.


When I read that pathetic story, I said to myself, “Self, that is WRONG, SO WRONG.” It’s wrong, in fact, on several different levels.” For example:


FISH AS PETS - The whole idea of a pet is that it is something you can ... well, pet. You can’t pet a fish. Oh sure, you can try, but after a few seconds of heavy fish petting the fish will either tire of it and swim away, or if he’s on your lap, he will just pass away. Many dogs are not intellectually gifted, but even the most mentally challenged dog will return your affection and lick your hand to demonstrate his admiration. Your dog will bond with you. So will your cat, if it wants something. Or your parakeet, for that matter. A fish, on the other hand, is emotionally void. You cannot put a fish on a leash and take it for a walk, or teach it to fetch your slippers. You cannot even housebreak a fish with a litter pan. I suppose you could allow it to curl up at the foot of your bed at night, but by morning you’d regret it.


GOLDFISH AS CARP - Goldfish are members of the carp family. They are carp, bred (there are professional goldfish breeders in China) to meet standards of size and color. Apparently many other colors and sizes were also introduced to the carp line, including the giant blue carp and the great white carp, but due to early 7th Century Chinese zoning restrictions, neither caught on as household “pets.” Be all that as it may, and it certainly may be, if there is a scale in the fish world (an intelligence scale, I mean), the carp is probably at the very bottom of that scale.


CARP AS FOOD - When I was a youngster in southwestern Michigan, I did a lot of fishing on the Thornapple River, which ran through my hometown. I caught northern pike, bass, bluegills, and catfish, all of which were, to one degree or another edible. I also caught an occasional carp. Carp meat was soft and tasteless, and although you could smoke carp over a barrel until it was more or less palatable, you could do the same thing with an old shoe. My dad raised beagles, and sometimes would pressure cook some of the pike I caught to soften the bones, and then feed them to the dogs, who always seemed to appreciate the effort. But he never had much success with the carp. Beagles are below average on the canine intelligence scale, but ours still had enough sense to turn their noses up at carp. Among the old fishermen I knew as a kid, the mere mention of a meal of fried carp was the kind of thing that was always followed by gales of laughter.


FRYING GOLDFISH - Again, goldfish are simply small carp. One can only assume that they taste every bit as bad as large carp, only there is less meat. Much less meat. My guess would be that after you’d scaled, gutted, and fileted a goldfish, there’d hardly be enough left to fry. Taste notwithstanding, you couldn’t make a decent meal out of seventy fried goldfish, let alone seven.


FRYING PETS IN GENERAL - While her frustration over the breakup may have been understandable, we would encourage the goldfish-frying lady in Texas to be a bit more selective when it comes to boyfriends. If she were to run a personal ad in the local paper, I’m sure she could find a more suitable gentleman somewhere in the greater Pasadena area. You know, a kind, decent, generous individual with no designs on her jewelry. And just to be on the safe side, they could purchase more conventional pets. Loving, demonstrative, cuddly pets, like Cornish game hens. Or maybe a family of those adorable little Buffalo wings.