I have a really big fishbowl. I call it my fishbowl lovingly because it actually is not a bowl at all. It’s the biggest aquarium I could find and afford about 10 years ago. When I bought this aquarium I was still in my not so very rich phase of life so I couldn’t afford a lot. “Luckily” a man well in his 80’s died and his wife had no clue what to do with the hobby her husband left her and she just wanted it to go to someone who also loved keeping fish. (Sorry ghost of previous owner, I don’t mean any disrespect. By the way, if you’re reading this, I’ve been meaning to thank you! I hope you like what I’ve done with it!)

So it’s huge. It’s about 300 liters of water and it has helped me true the toughest of times. I don’t know what happens in my brain when I am looking at it, but I go completely brain splashed and relax immediately. I found out fish turned my brain off when I was still living with my parents. I had bought a little aquarium of 20 liters and started learning how to keep it, when suddenly my first boyfriend and I broke up. I ended up a mess for about 6 months and the only way I could fall asleep was watching my fish in the blue LED moonlight I placed inside. It kind of spiraled out of control and before I knew what happened I was the proud owner of 7 aquariums, and moving my bed out of my bedroom to the hall because my bed didn’t fit in my room anymore.

I got in control of my hobby and when I moved to my own house. I moved there with “just 3″ aquariums. Until the one day I finally found the one I have now. I still have a yearly lightbulb going up in my head with: “I have the best idea! I should get ANOTHER aquarium!!”. Which my husband now carefully handles with a well thought out speech about all the extra buckets of water I would have to carry around and how we would lose space for other nice things like books and pretty vases. He’s got it under control.

But now my point. (Yes, it took me a while to get there, I agree, I’ll work on that.)

I had these two fishes. They were a couple. Let’s call them Mama Fish and Papa Fish. Mama Fish and Papa Fish had a happy marriage and consumed it regularly and as a result, every half year, about 40 baby fish appeared. Let’s not name them because naming them gets you attached to them and they’re all not staying around…

About 30 of them got eaten by other fish before their two week birthday. I even caught Papa Fish nomnomnoming on one of his baby’s when Mama Fish was not looking, in fish world things are rough. And weird! This isn’t even the weirdest part. But I’ll get there. So the 10 baby fish that did survive, grew up and when they got big enough, they needed to move out. Just like with people, Mama and Papa Fish just get sick of them. Unlike with people, Mama and Papa Fish beat the living hell out of the Now-in-puberty Fish and if they still don’t leave it get’s bloody. Not being able to leave the big tank, unlike in nature, is not a good enough excuse for Mama and Papa Fish, what can I say. Fish don’t make the easiest parents.

So when it was time, I fished out all the Puberty Fish to bring them to a store, so they can find their own nice homes. But the last time, there was one Puberty Fish (let’s call her Daughter Fish, she sticks around, you can get attached) that just didn’t want to get caught. I tried for two hours to catch her and then I gave up because her siblings were getting cold.

Because it’s a big aquarium, I thought, well, then maybe they’ll accept her having a tiny part of the aquarium. And they did, not only did she get her own part of the aquarium, she also got Papa Fish, who apparently decided to start a polyamorous lifestyle. And fish are not the brightest so I’m kind of sure he just forgot Daughter Fish was also his daughter. Which is weird. I know. But it get’s even weirder.

One day, tragedy struck and Papa Fish got sick and died. Mama Fish and Daughter Fish were both completely distraught by the sudden lack of a man in their lives and ended up both looking for him and constantly finding only each other. You can imagine that there was no love left between these two. Reality in fish world is not like The Bold and The Beautiful. No no… At first anyway. So Mama Fish just kept beating Daughter fish up. (Who can blame her?) But then, as I was thinking about getting a new Papa Fish but still a bit worried that Daughter and Mama Fish would also start hating on the Papa Fish the Second, they made up. And what happens? They become a lesbian couple. The whole thing was already weird but this for me was a whole new level of weirdness! We’re still not there yet, it gets weirder.

So months go by and Mama and Daughter Fish keep trying to do the couple thing but they get completely frustrated because well, how do I put this… Their sex life is just not working for them. But then Daughter Fish starts changing. When fish are happy, their colors are all shiny and bright, when fish are unhappy their colors disappear. And Daughter Fish suddenly gets colorless, while Mama Fish just kept getting happier. And one day, I look in my aquarium and I notice that Daughter Fish, is no longer Daughter Fish. She is now Son Fish. Yes! Wtf indeed…

I don’t even know what to conclude this story with. I guess my fish surprised me. I thought we humans were getting somewhere with the whole ‘being openminded’ thing but now I’m wondering if we falling behind on fish.

I’ll keep you posted for the next episode of The Bold and The Beautiful Fish. But I’m not sure if it can get any weirder than this. On the other hand, I had the same idea, four levels of weird back, so what do I now…