Goldfish

St. Nick’s school carnival was like every other parish carnival on the South Side of Chicago. You had a couple of rides on the corner of the parking lot, a beer garden, home made cakes, and carnival games.  And, like all school carnivals, you could win a fish if you threw a ping pong ball into the little guy’s bowl. The fish never lived too long, partly because of the brain damage from being hit on the head with a ping pong ball, and partly because kids either forget to feed them or they dump a whole box of food into the little bowl.

One year Uncle Jim won a fish. He was very proud of his fish, and vowed to take good care of it. instead of keeping it in the little bowl from the carnival, the fish was now moved to a 5 gallon glass water jug that sat pretty much in the middle of the kitchen.  You could barely see the tiny fish in this big jug, but Uncle Jim paid very close attention to it. Now, Tolleys being Tolleys can’t leave any open opportunity for a joke.  I really can’t remember who actually did it, (probably either me or Uncle John) but somebody bought another goldfish from the store and put it in the jug while Uncle Jim was at school. Imagine his surprise when he came home to find that his fish had a baby! Well! We didn’t even know she was a girl. This was all quite amazing. I think a couple more babies appeared before someone rolled a bowling ball into the glass jug, which broke into a million pieces and soaked the carpeting in the kitchen for days.