A (Somewhat Minor) Tragedy

So about two months ago, Holly came home from Wal-Mart with two betta fish for the boys. In case you're not familiar with these guys, they're the infamous "fighting fish" who flare their gills when they see another fish (or themselves in a mirror...). Anyway, Holly thought that it might be fun for the boys to have another couple of "pets" in the house, and that it would be a good way for Chris to learn some responsibility by feeding them, etc.

Now, these fish don't require a lot in the ways of a home, so they had a cool little tank that was split downt the middle by a removable barrier (so they didn't attack each other, but you could remove it and watch the hilarity that ensued). The tank sat on the kitchen counter. That's point number one.

Point number two is that we have cats. From day one, we always did a great job of keeping the cats away from the fish, and made every effort to ensure their little guppy safety. In spite of our efforts, the cats frequently knocked the top off of the fish tank to drink the water. Gross, I know, especially given that they have fresh, clean water downstairs. But these are also the same animals that lick their own butts to keep clean, so what're ya' gonna' do? I digress... The point is that we had come to believe that the fish were in no real danger as the cats were apparently only interested in their home as a source of (somewhat nasty) drinking water. Guess they were too lazy to go downstairs for a drink, but I digress again...

Fast forward to this morning. I was on my way downstairs to get the boys' sippy-cups ready for the car, when I saw it... Toppled over and spewing rocks and water everywhere was the aforementioned "split level" fish house. And where, pray tell, were said fish (whose names are Bob and Fred, by the way)?? Kitty breakfast burritos, I'm afraid! It seems the cats were lulling us into a sense of false pescadoral security by only drinking the water up to this point, and were simply biding their time until they could get away scott-free.

The boys don't know about the incident yet, as I was able to clean up the mess and put the fish tank under the sink. I'm still not sure how we're going to handle this one, but it should be entertaining!

RIP Bob and Fred...