Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Puzzling Conundrum of the Missing Goldfish

Have you seen this fish?



Well, a very similar fish in any case.

I think the title says it all. One of the fish is missing. It used to hide under a shell and now it's gone. I've looked everywhere. It's totally gone.

The facts of the case are as follows:
*The last time I'm sure I saw the goldfish was five days ago, on Saturday.
*Last night, he was gone. I lifted everything in the tank and wiggled it and looked under it and no fish.
*There are no fish bits in the tank to suggest an unprovoked attack and subsequent cannibalization from his tankmates, neither of which are large enough to have swallowed him whole. No one had been nipping at him, and he didn't have any obvious signs of illness when I saw him last.
*His tank is covered, so he probably didn't jump out. None of the fish has made any attempt to jump out, even when the tank was uncovered and my hand was in there scaring them half to death.
*He is not stuck to the lid of the tank.
*There is a slim possibility he managed to jump out, through a 1" x 3" door in the cover that we open to feed them. He would have cleared a distance of at least 1 foot. If it's what happened, somehow he did this with LE and I standing right there as we fed the fish. He somehow made no splashing, thumping, or flopping sounds.
*If he did jump out, he could have gotten vacuumed though if the cleaner had seen him I think she would have mentioned it.

It's quite the mystery. I haven't told LE yet. I'm not sure he notices things like that though he does tend to notice the oddest things.

17 comments:

Nomad said...

Sniff-check the kid.

One time a friend of my bought a "cool" crawdad for the aquarium and it would wait until the fish slept and dispose of every one. Within a week, the tank was looking like a slow day at the Bates Motel. That horrible critter also had a bad habit of making prison breaks and nothing (underlined and boldfaced) nothing is worse than stepping on a crawdad in the morning before- or during your first cup of coffee.

Stranger said...

A crawdad is one of the few things I'd never want as a pet.

The involvement of the boy in the mysterious fish disappearance is implausible theory number two. It would mean he had to drag a chair into his bedroom in order to climb up onto the dresser, get the net out of an even higher storage thingy above the tank (or catch the fish bare-handed), then catch the fish, dispose of it somehow, return the chair to where he found it, and manage to not tell us about the wonderfully exciting thing he'd just done.

To his credit, when BE was supposed to be watching LE this morning (but was in fact sound asleep on the sofa), LE got a chair under the high cupboard where the candy is kept then ate all of a huge bag of gummy bears before bringing the bag to his father and shouting, "Baba wake up! Ender all done!"

So it's not impossible.

Unknown said...

Unnamed foreign powers intent on keeping Turkey down and imposing a Pontus Greek state on the Black Sea and creating a Greater Armenia have taken it. They are the same people responsible for Hadise not winning the Eurovision song contest and for not getting into the EU.

Anonymous said...

This has happened to us a couple times. Yes they can jump out from that tiny opening of the fish tank. The fish dries up and becomes a fish jerky pretty fast and it is very hard to identify it especially if you had any vacuuming activity. Good luck with the "The Puzzling Conundrum of the Missing Goldfish" but I have a feeling that it is long gone with the last clean up

Stranger said...

Anonymous, That's a distinct possibility. Sneaky fish. A very well-executed suicide.

Seamus, that was my other theory.

Nomad said...

A suicide note was found.
http://nomadicjoe.blogspot.com/2009/05/love-note-from-fishbowl.html

Stranger said...

Jeez, it started off funny but now it's just tragic. It's a very evocative suicide note.

Fish Who Hides Under Stuff isn't a very good name at all, in retrospect.

RIP, little fella.

Unknown said...

I hope nobody has eaten him with yogurt because the consequences for the human body are nothing short of catastrophic.

Melissa said...

I think the other fish ate him. I hear that happens a lot.

Stranger said...

Especially if the yoghurt was cold!

Unknown said...

I feel that eating yoghurt for Turks is akin to a religous experience like eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ.

Stranger said...

Plus, it cures what ails ya! That's why no one gets cancer from smoking.

Unknown said...

They might not get much cancer but why does half the population have yuksek tansiyon and why do they take it so seriously?

Also why do so many women have `sancim var` British women dont go on about it all the time.

Stranger said...

I never knew what the hell sancım was until I had a baby.

Then I wonder the same as you-- why the hell do they go on about it all the time? And what is it exactly? It's not usually menstruation-related. When a woman has menstrual cramps, she only mentions it in a soft voice, touching her belly lightly and going "Hastayım." How many years did it take me to catch onto the subtlety of being "hasta" (always said softly)? I personally refuse to say it myself. I'm all brash with my "adetim," and refrain from mentioning it as much as possible.

It's confusing and vague like "şeker hastalığı" (is it diabetes? Hypoglycemia? If so, why not call it that?)

It's one reason I don't like being sick in Turkey. I'll never acquire the subtle and vague vocab to discuss it properly.

Unknown said...

At the private `uni` I worked at we had a new teacher about 25, fake blonde hair, green eyes (I never noticed as men dont give a toss about eye colour in reality) and she was fashion model thin. She was adored by students, management and Turkish teachers on account of her youth, blonde hair, eyes and thinness. Also she only ever ate kraker.

One afternoon there was much wailing and Murat Bey (head of english) even came out of his office:

Blonde Ece had yuksek tansiyon, major efforts were made to console her and offer her practical advice, she was sent to the doctor immediately and given the rest of the week off and her doctors note was accepted with genuine affection. The foreign staff were treated like niggers.

Unknown said...

Could you do a piece on private hospitals? I am going back to Ist next week as we have a reading week and I could do a guest piece on that fancy hospital in Beyliduzu.

Stranger said...

Well, there's this, mostly about Medicana (the new one):

http://istanbuls-stranger.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-month-gone-by.html

And this one, about medical treatment here:
http://istanbuls-stranger.blogspot.com/2008/04/doctors.html