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Our church recently had a carnival/festival and there were some contests for children. Some of the contests (throw a football through a tire, carry an egg on a spoon, pop the balloon with the darts, etc.) had prizes, and one particular contest was awarding live goldfish (in plastic bags filled with water) as the prize.

No one in my family won a goldfish by playing that game. But we knew the people manning that booth and, unfortunately, they had some fish leftover at the end of the day. That meant that they had to get rid of them somehow, so they gave us a fish.

We already had an empty fishbowl from years ago, and the fish-givers gave us fish food, so we thought it wouldn’t be too bad. It could have been worse: someone else there was giving away puppies (not for a contest, but for anyone who wanted one). So we took the fish home and setup the fishbowl.

The fish did not have a name. We got the fish on a Saturday, and my wife named the fish on Tuesday. I came home from work, and we sat down to eat dinner. As part of the dinner conversation my wife referred to the fish as “Floaty”. Sure enough, he was quite floaty. So now he resides in a different plastic bag – until next Tuesday when he moves to his new home courtesy of the garbage truck.

“Therefore the land mourns, And everyone who lives in it languishes Along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, And also the fish of the sea disappear.”
– Hosea 4:3