Kindsay--Again

Ah, my favorite subject. Kindsay is a funny girl--at least 3 days later. Her passion is animals: loving and hating. I have a beta fish in my classroom and over spring break had to bring it home to care for it. Kindsay called me on my way home from McLane asking incessantly about the fish-whose is it?, why do we have it?, can we keep it?, why are we taking it?...and on and on during the fifteen-minute drive. I tried to answer, but my answers weren't what she was interested in. She was simply interested in understanding the concept of the fish and all she wanted to hear from me was that we would be keeping it. No, my answer was pretty firm coming out. We've had fish before. "I will not kill it. I will not put it on this lightbulb and kill it like the other fish." all the while I am repeating No No No. "Mom--we are fish poor!" She was scraping for anything to say to convince me that we need a fish. Oh, we're fish poor...well then we should keep this one! "We don't have a hamster and we don't have a fish! And I won't kill them this time!" When I got the fish home it took a matter of a few hours before I went back to find bread crumbs in the fish bowl and the plant that was entertaining the fish thrown in the trash can. OK--this is WHY we don't have a fish, and why we aren't keeping this one! The fish food, I told her over and over, was at grandma's and we would get it later! I say this to her as I'm scooping bread crumbs out of a very narrow opening in the poor excuse of a fish bowl. The fish is playing dead, like Nemo. She put her face right into the glass and yelled at the fish, which she named Chloe at first, then Zack, then Jack. It's dead! She screams this down the hall. I go to the fish, who has one eye open scanning the glass, and I realize its fins are moving slightly, enough to prove its not dead. In a swoop I've got the fish and whisk it off to my mom's for safe keeping. Let's hope it survives spring break, and doesn't wind up half-fried in a plastic egg in a basket filled with sugary, edible grass.