American Tank Horror.

If I can catch you with a bit of dental floss and a moth, slap you in a pan, and roast you for dinner, you probably shouldn't scare the crap out of me, Mr. Fish. But, oh, you do. My fish tank contains one of the meanest, sneakiest Red Tiger Oscars you could ever meet. An aquarium is supposed to be relaxing and tranquil? That depends on how many killers it has in it, and how well they are at doing a Jaws imitation at each feeding time. Gonna need a bigger finger. I think I have it bad, but his tank-mate is far worse off. He suffers regular beatings with whatever weapons there are in the tank, and from the scrapes and scars, they must have some significant hiding places for shivs. After much pondering, I have named them Nucky and Eli. (For those of you who do not watch Boardwalk Empire, there is no 'nicer' brother, just one is better at killin' than the other.) Finally, names that work. When I returned from Italy, and they hadn't killed each other, I was going to name them after the Medici brothers, but those names did not roll of my tongue when I had to continually shout, "Lorenzo, stop chasing Guiliano into the tank wall!" and, "Lorenzo, get your teeth out of my thumb!" Also, I couldn't remember which one was which, so I think Guiliano received some very harsh tones when he didn't deserve them. Sorry, buddy. For a short while, after "the incident" I named them Devil Fish I and Devil Fish II, but that seemed to be a self fulfilling prophecy, because their behavior just worsened over time until I was just blindly flinging small animals into the tank and slamming the lid down and running away before they could come after ME. Ok, totally kidding about the small animals, but I do see that in the future. As it is, they have tried to take me down. It all came about one innocent evening, I'm chatting on the phone, and wander over to the tank to feed the "guys" some dinner. I lift the tank lid, and IMMEDIATELY there is a fish, eye level with me, flying by my head. I know he was aiming for my neck, but my cat-like reflexes and woman-like shrieking saved me, and he landed on the rug at my feet. Quickly, I ended my phone call with some reassuring statement like "Uh, the fish! Oh my god- I have to go- it tried to KILL me!" Click. (My caller did try to call back right away and was a bit anxious that I didn't answer. Funny, now.)



My first instinct when it comes to nature emergencies is to scream. My second one is to run away. In this case, however, I did neither of those. I looked at Nucky and said, "Well, now what Mr. Smartypants?" He just layed there. No embarrassing flopping, no gasping for air. Water? Whatever. He just rolled that big fishy eyeball my way and LOOKED at me. I backed up a little. Having no idea how long a fish can survive without water and covered in dog hair, I began to consider my options. Certainly, he had to be picked up, but how? I had been stabbed by Che enough times to know that another fish finger infection was not something I wanted, and this guy had big spiny fins, and I was pretty sure he knew some Vlad the Impaler moves. Not interested. I rushed off to the kitchen, and grabbed a kitchen towel. After tossing it over the eerily calm Nucky, I picked him up and chucked him back in the tank, fully expecting him to swim to the lower bottom corner and cower for a while, thinking with his tiny fish brain, "WTF was THAT????" Nope. He swung right around and gave me the fish eyeball again. That's when I knew it was time to take the upper hand before he thought he could.

Feeding time became more of a "Fish Rehabilitation" time, with me loudly announcing as I approached the tank that NO ONE was to leap, bite, splash or otherwise make any sudden movements. After they completely ignored me and started bumping the lid with their snouts (I have no idea what the face part of a fish is called) I would then slap the lid to get them in line. When they were quiet, I would open the lid, toss in the food and close the lid, my heart pounding all the while. After a week of this, and they were actually behaving like gentlefish a little more, I started feeding them by hand. I'll be honest, I would have to tap Nucky on the head with my knuckle from time to time to get him to cool his jets, but he did settle enough to let Eli eat. And it was always disconcerting that Nucky did not care AT ALL that I was bopping him. In fact, I think he liked it.

Things were progressing quite well, and then we had a bit of a back-slide. Nucky became super-agressive and began stressing Eli out so badly that he got sick. Really sick. Time for the Fish Hospital. This consisted of me placing a small tank in the big tank and then expertly maneuvering Eli into it. In actuality, it was more like me trying to lasso a cat. A big, scary cat with spines who had the capability to drench me with gallons of tank water. With my net in hand, I gingerly chased a now-renewed Eli around the tank, each of us becoming progressively more aggressive, until I was yelling, "Get in the f-ng net, you f-ing fish!" and he was zipping back and forth in the tank, smacking his head on the tank wall in his desperation to get away. This was going well.

Eventually, I got poor head-injured Eli into the tiny tank and slapped the lid closed. It took him a few minutes to realize he was virtually in a fish bowl, but once he did, he settled right down and rested in the corner. Nucky came over to investigate, and seemed somewhat annoyed that his punching bag was now protected by an invisible bubble.

I medicated the whole tank for a few days, and left Eli in his safe cocoon for a week. He started to look better in two days, and truly appeared to enjoy his relative safety. Finally, health restored, he was ready to be released back into the "wild." I left the hospital in place with the door open, and it became "the apartment." I would find one or both of them in there, having "Man Time." I'm waiting for them to install the pool table and dart board.