This is what it's like to be me.

[Huaco Kid]

So...  I was at Meijer (the upper~mid~west's Walmart),  buying a bunch of regular crap,  and on an impulse, I got a betta fish.  A very young (just over an inch) deep deep red male (my last one died a year ago),  in a little clear tub.  Put him in my cart.

At the checkout, the girl (about high school, I guess ), had beeped and bagged everything else,  and I kept the fish for last, and was standing at the credit card~reader end.  I held it up towards her, about head high, so she could beep the barcode on the bottom.....

And she let out a bloodcurdling scream and BOLTED!

Then she instantly acted  like a trapped wild cat and started panicked zigzagging back and forth, in stops and starts.

Then she took off through the clothing department, towards the back of the store.

So now I'm just standing there, thinking, "Well. This is new."

And then I noticed that the whole store had come to a complete halt.  And was staring at me.  Like I had just assaulted or hit her.

They all slowly started dialing their phones and holding them to their ears.  The employees at the customer counter came out and gathered in small groups and very slowly started making uncertain steps toward me. 

I'm at a complete loss of words or actions.

After a full minute, some guy rushed up from the back of the store and apologized.  He said the girl prolifically apologized too.

It seems that she had a severe fear of fish.  Fishophobia.

And I had just casually stuck it in her face.

So the guy finished checking me out.  Said the girl really looked pretty freaked out.

The whole store, still frozen,  silently watched me walk out of the store.

I'll name him "Red".

[crockett]

She needs to come to my local beach for therapy!

I get swarmed by thousands of Greenbacks every single time I go for a swim. They use human beings in the ocean in order to come safely to the surface and eat what ever swims on the water. A human in close proximity prevents the flying Mine - Mine - MIne assholes from catching them. Those greenbacks start jumping out of the water, and every now and then one will land right in your face.

The other day I came swimming back from deeper waters, stretched out one leg to see if I have ground, and step on a stupid manatee. Its mating season and they love to creep up on humans. They are huge and are frequently assumed to be sharks by those liberal toolbag tourists from up North.

Dolphins are within reach as well on a daily basis, and sharks can be seen regularly. Recently they started hiding in our intra coastal canals due to the red tide blooming.

She would be cured within a day and a half. Or be dead.

 

 

 

 

[gwalchmai]

Fishophobia

[Huaco Kid]

1 hour ago, crockett said:

I get swarmed by thousands of Greenbacks every single time I go for a swim.

That's probably exactly what happened to her when she was four,  on summer vacation in Cocoa Beach.

Now I feel kind of bad about it.  She's probably 1 1/2 bottles of Merlot into it,  and leaving rambling incoherent messages on her therapist's home phone,  knowing full well he won't answer until 8am tomorrow. 

[railfancwb]

One supposition about the legend of the mermaid is that sex-starved sailors from the wooden sailing ship era saw manatee and imagination did the rest. 

[holyjohnson]

3 hours ago, Huaco Kid said:

Like I had just assaulted or hit her.

those are the same thing..

 

Congrats on Red, he (or she) is off to a Great Start.

[TBO]

#fishystory

[gwalchmai]

6 hours ago, holyjohnson said:

those are the same thing..

To be fair, the second is a subset of the first.

[holyjohnson]

On 10/13/2021 at 2:56 AM, gwalchmai said:

To be fair, the second is a subset of the first.

both cost and extra Hundred on South 8th Street.

[Huaco Kid]

I just drove through a tornado.

Dinged my car pretty good.

[Huaco Kid]

[Huaco Kid]

Now his name is Death-Killer.  "Red Death Killer".

I swatted a fly,  and put it in there while it was still wiggly.

The fish went halloween-freddiekruger-jason on it.

It was a little bit unsettling.

If you were drowning in a river in,  wherever these guys come from (Thailand?),  they would eagerly rip your throat out.

[Huaco Kid]

That's him,  with his flared opercula.

I haven't showed him a mirror yet.

Because I don't want him to be more deadly than he already is

[Huaco Kid]

The orange ones are gay.

[Huaco Kid]

The blue ones are gay on the orange ones.

No one messes with the red ones.

[Huaco Kid]

I came home this week,  and my basement is the "big room",  my office, and my "tool room".

In my tool-room, I heard the cheep-cheep-cheep,  and there was a bird in the basement ductwork.  A cheepy bird.

If you knocked on the ducts,  he would go down to the end.

Where the chimney thing comes in.  We've got two flues,  where the oil-burner goes up, and the coal-burner goes up.  At the bottom they meet at a clean-out spot.

So I took a lot apart,  and had a mirror and a flashlight, and could see the sparrow down there,  but he was freaked.  So I thought,  if I just left it all open,  he'd fly out,  into the house,  and we'd open a door,  and he'd eventually fly out.

So, later,  I looked at the mirror and he was gone.  But he wasn't in the house.

Later,  I heard cheep-cheep at the bottom of the wall,  where the clean-out is.

There's a little door in the wall,  totally rusted shut,  so I had to smack it with hammer to open it.

And I found the bird, dead.  Still warm,  and limp, and dead.

He was alive 3 minutes ago.  I don't know if the hammering freaked him and he bolted and broke his neck.  or just gave him a damn aneurysm.

But I felt bad.

[Huaco Kid]

And then I had to get the shop-vac,  because there were 400,000,000,000 dead stink-bugs accumulated at the bottom of the flues. 

[Huaco Kid]

And the stink-bugs were so wet and oily, that I could have probably burned them in the coal-burner,  for a long weekend.

[Huaco Kid]

If you damp them waaay down,  they just glow for three days.

[Huaco Kid]

If the lectercity goes out,  in the middle of winter,  a five-gallon bucket of pine cones,  damped down to a glow,  will leave you with the windows cracked-open,  for three days.

[Huaco Kid]

On 10/12/2021 at 6:56 PM, crockett said:

She needs to come to my local beach for therapy!

At Miami,  we rented stand-up boards. 

Which was cool.  I can totally do that.  All day long.

But after 20 minutes,  I figured it sucked and turned it into a sit-down board.  Same thing!

My wife and daughter ditched me,  and bolted a mile up, out into the ocean.

So I was in the bay,  paddling around......

And this HUGE shadowy shape,  waaaaaaay  bigger than me and my board,  slowly slithered past,  underneath deep.  Like as big as a jet airliner.

So I paddled to the shore,  and never went more than three foot away.

[Huaco Kid]

When you get really high at work:

and get paid for it.

 

[Huaco Kid]

50' shorter than the Empire State building.

 

[Huaco Kid]

[Huaco Kid]