My second story (see my blog for the others) is about my first pet ever Pip Pop.
I was only two years old and my older sister was four at the time. Mum brought home one day a mysterious looking bowl which was covered in a blanket.
Curiouser and curiouser, my sister and I crept closer to the bowl and had a peek. To our delight, Mum had got us our very own goldfish. We named it Pip Pop.
Like most little girls we loved our tea parties and Pip Pop was always our guest of honor.
One day while Mum was busy in the bedroom putting our clothes away we decided that a tea party with just water wasn't very exciting and decided to treat our friend Pip Pop to a new experience.
Mum came back in the room as I had just asked Pip Pop if he was enjoying his coffee.
To my Mum's horror, the entire fishbowl was as black could be and Pip Pop could not be seen for the coffee.
Immediately Mum drained the bowl expecting to be swooping up a lifeless Pip Pop but to her surprise, he was fine all be it a bit jumpy.
She refilled the bowl with clean water and proceeded to explain to us girls that fish don't like coffee.
I wasn't convinced because he OBVIOUSLY was very excited about the experience, he couldn't stop zipping around the bowl.
A couple days passed and the incident was forgotten until we decided another tea party was in order.
Remembering Mum's talk we decided that we wouldn't give Pip Pop any coffee but my sister had an ingenious idea. Our Mum always told us that Milk was good for our bones and teeth so we would be doing our fish Pip Pop a favor right?
Again Mum walked past and saw the bowl was white as snow and again Pip Pop was nowhere to be seen. Begrudgingly she cleaned his bowl again expecting the worst but once again Pip Pop was fine.
After another talk of what not to put in the fishbowl, Mum put his bowl on the table we couldn't reach ( or so she thought) and kept on with her chores.
About two weeks later Mum walked past the table and noticed that Pip Pop was floating on top of the water, dead as a doornail. There didn't appear to be anything in the bowl so Mum decided to ask us anyway if we knew what had happened to Pip Pop.
Mum entered our room. We were playing with our Barbies having a wonderful fashion competition when Mum asked: “Girls, what happened to Pip Pop, did you put something in the water again?”
I turned to Mum and simply explained: “Of course not Mummy, but he was very dirty so I cleaned him. He didn't like it much so he's sleeping now.”
“What did you clean him with Sarah?” From under my bed, I pulled out the bottle of dishwashing liquid. “This soap stuff.”
So Mum had to send Pip Pop off to that big bowl in the sky. Suffice to say we did not get another fish for quite some time after that.
