I
heard a rumor that it was Sue Hunter's birthday soon.
She and that fish! Don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about that
fish. It's a dudded-up carp, for goodness' sake. Carpe diem, indeed. More
like: Let the buyer beware. How much did she pay for this bundle of wisdom
anyway?
It wasn't that long ago, that a little girl with big blue eyes gazed into an aquarium of goldfish and chose the one she felt most special. After bringing it home, little did the Hunter family know just how special Puffie really is.
For example, this latest spam of his/hers: hawking Bye-Bye Rag. Don't fish lay eggs? I'm suspicious of this product at best. It took twice as long to work on me as promised and I still get the gosh-darned cramps. I think Puffie's a wolf in fish scales.
I am, however, the first to admit that the fish does a nice job on spammers. It's amazing the abuse they put up with from real people on the BC list. But let the little fish get involved and those cries of "get me off" start appearing like crazy. Very effective, Puff.
The Undertoad once told me that Puffie and Iamdiego are one in the same. Nerdlebub agreed. No wonder she said she had three double-mastectomies. Fish have no boobs to begin with. Then there's the fact that they can't count -- no fingers or toes, either.
But how could we forget Puffie's foray into poetry? Haiku to be exact. A Japanese art of five-lines of verse. S/he just had to steal Ray's limelight as he drowned us in melancholy verse found touching by some and totally self-serving by others. Poor guy. Off in his lonely Scotland with only the Loch Ness monster and only the mythical Anna to keep him company. Ah yes, I know Anna has written the list a time or two, but either they've been married forever and have developed exactly the same syntax or Ray is a cross-dresser. I suppose it could happen. Only Puffie knows for sure.
I hear Pat and Nancy suggested leashing in Puffie, to which the fish refused. This is the mark of a very stubborn, untrainable animal. One I'm not sure is legal in any state if the humane authorities catch on. Though the tiff over horoscope signs may be a bit overplayed, do they really know Puffie is a Pisces, other than the fact that s/he's a fish? Perhaps s/he is really a cancer, hatched in late June, early July. That would explain the fish's aversion to shark cartilage.
So now the fish wants company. A piranha for certain. And Sweet Sue is refusing, making it known that the newcomer's life would be short. Could it be that piranha need salt water to survive and Puffie lives in fresh ... er, relatively .. fresh water. It won't stay that for long, if he wins the real plants he asked for through Betsy Driscoll. Unless Sue gets the Puffster some of those nauseating snails to keep the walls of the aquarium clean. And who knows what trouble that bunch could get us all in!
And now we all know why Sue hates the paper vests so. Puffie eats them. Why doesn't she just pop for the premium fish food and still keep her shirt on. Probably cheaper for everyone. I'm sure Puffie can't wear them as even the sticky plastic-backed ones don't last long when they're immersed.
However, I did hear from Sea World yesterday. They do have a place that could accommodate Puffie for the trip to Portland in September. He'd have to risk time in the tank with Keiko the orca, and keepers can't guarantee that Puffie wouldn't become Jonah in the belly of the whale, but the offer is available. Though that could leave us temporarily without an mc, and if Sweet Sue were to have to wing it, well, let's just hope Puffie leaves notes.
Perhaps Jim will solve the problem Max brought up, that Sue can't stay underwater long enough to hear Puffie's entire opinion of the esteemed JCS. Let's all hope her darling husband can find her some snorkeling gear so she can get the whole scoop on what's on the fish's mind.
All -in-all, I think the fish-woman relationship must be cathartic for both of them. The alter-ego thing allows Sue to stay out from under the table more these days, since he's always carping about checking the address line. Now if the fish can figure out whether we are indeed supposed to drink milk or not; survive on soy, take shark cartilage and how it is best to floss our teeth without getting lymphadema, I think we could make s/he the monarch of the list and know exactly where to go when we need guidance on these new treatments. Of course, from my perspective, Puff wasn't much comfort when I needed help last fall. All those shameless butt jokes... I found them rather assinine, personally.
Still, where would the list be without the fish that little girl chose in that tank one day? We'd be stuck with Fang, who hibernates six months of the year, and does little to help us, save to access our ports regularly. Keep feeding him, Sue. We need you both.
Fran Liberatore-Read
who's always way behind
