Pet Fish

Fish have two uses in my opinion. One, they keep the ecosystem in oceans, lakes, and rivers in check. Two, they are rather yummy when cooked correctly. Outside of that, fish are completely useless. Yet, they are everywhere. In fact, you can pretty much tell if something is a commonplace household item if it appears in Wal-Mart. Well, guess what, Wal-Mart has its very own isle dedicated to fish tanks full of fish (most of which are dying, if not dead already).

Alright, maybe fish do have some use outside of being food and keeping the ecosystem balanced. They make semi-decent ornaments. For example, my parents once owned a beta fish, which just sat in a bowl in the middle of the table floating there and looking pretty. Occasionally, it would swim in a circle, but most of the time it was just there, being a fish, doing nothing.

What gets to me is this: Why do people buy fish as pets? This confuses me on so many levels that I don't really even know where to begin. I mean, for one, you can't pet your pet fish. You can try, but chances are good that the second you start stroking the thing you'll either pollute the water, stress it out, or damage a fin. No matter the build-up, the end result is always the same; the fish is boarding the one way flight to the toilet and off to fishy heaven. You can't walk a fish either. It just floats. That's all it does. You can't give it a bath, cause hell, the thing lives in water. You can't teach it to do tricks like play dead or roll over. You can't even get it to guard your house! How many criminals do you know who are afraid of guard-fish?

Though, I must admit, a guard fish would be rather cool... I suppose if people could buy sharks, fish would be far better pets. Granted, the shark wouldn't be very good at guarding your whole house unless you lived under water, but it could guard your bathtub or your swimming pool... If you got a small shark, you could even let it guard your sink or toilet!

I've changed my mind. Not all fish are useless pets, but until someone calls me up and says "Hey James, wanna come over and see my Great White Shark? He's guarding the pool!" I'm just not going to be a fan of people owning fish.