A Fish Named Drake

A couple of months ago, my son, Matt, told me he was getting a fish. One of his good buddies was relocating to Florida and Matt agreed to “adopt” his fish. One day when I got home from work, they were moving in a fish tank and all of the related paraphernalia. The tank was put on the dresser in Matt’s room and the fish, an Oscar, was brought in once everything was set up. Matt decided to name the fish “Drake” after the rapper.

I told Matt I had no interest in “his” fish and that I would not be taking care of it. Matt said that wouldn’t be a problem and his friend taught him what he needed to do to take care of the fish. Not long after, a weekend came along where Matt was headed to the coast and I reluctantly agreed to feed the fish, but only because Matt was going to be gone.

It’s now two months later and somehow I feel like Drake is “my” fish, too. He has since been relocated to a 55 gallon tank in the living room and every day, I go in to check on the fish and talk to him. I wake up in the morning and stop in the living room to check on Drake. I get home from work and go in the living room to see how Drake is doing. Before I go to sleep at night, I’m in the living room checking on the fish. Sometimes I sit on the couch near the tank for a while so that Drake has some company. One day after playing racquetball, I stopped at the nearby pet store to talk to the fish lady to learn about taking care of the fish. And when I came home, I brought Drake a present of some more fake plants to put in his tank! (He has moved them around a bit and he likes to hide behind them. Who knew?)

How did this happen? It’s funny, because when Matt first got the fish I told him and some of his friends that I was 47 years old and had never had a fish tank. Why? Because in 47 years I never wanted a fish tank. Now not only do I have a big fish tank in my house, but there’s a little fish in it that has somehow captured a piece of my heart!