A Family Matter

I write you in a spirit of mourning, to ask for your thoughts in this time of solemn reflection. One of our own has passed on. Our beloved safety captain is no longer with us. While plans fall in to replace him, the moment to grieve for his passing comes now.

Squirt Squishy Killer Bee, also known as The SSB, or just Squirt, was bought at Meijer’s at 11:30 on Saturday, February 4th, for 19¢. A group of Bees were out shopping for craft supplies to put together their Chairman’s presentation and had been going from store to store looking for what they needed. The first store – Michel’s – had been conveniently located next to a Petco, where the idea of a Team Pet (I mean, we’re a family! And all families need a pet!”) came from. By the second store, every item looked at was mentioned along side ‘how about a fish, too,’ at the third store one student discovered he had brought his wallet, and by the time we reached Meijer’s we were chanting ‘Team Fish!’ while skipping through the store to where they kept the fish tanks.

Squirt started his life happy in our CAD room. We bought him a bowl and food, and cleared out a whole square shelf of storage for his bowl to sit in. We made him a name tag, and fed him carefully – even making a feeding chart to ensure he received the correct amount of nutrients a day. At lunch time we introduced our SSB to the rest of the team. One mentor predicted that “This will be the year remembered as ‘the year we got the fish.’” Indeed, things looked up for Squirt, so surrounded by love and support.

But, there were complications none could have predicted. Around 3:00, Squirt started settling to the bottom of his bowl. One mentor assured us he was sleeping, or just tired from having so many people around. Another mentor told us that Squirt – as a 19¢ gold fish – wasn’t supposed to live that long. In fact, he was meant to be food for bigger fish. (This information was followed with descriptive stories of how his starfish attacked and ate fish like Squishy. I was grateful most Chairman’s girls had left by then.) By around 4, we started becoming suspicious that Squirt was not in fact sleeping, and eventually brought out a stick to gently poke him with. After several pokes and still no movement, Squirt was officially declared dead.

A boy proudly carried Squirt in his bowl above his head in an all-male funeral procession to the boy’s bathroom, where laughing was heard while the remaining girls grieved.
Perhaps it was the lack of light he received on his shelf, or maybe the sink water in his bowl wasn’t clean enough. Maybe we didn’t clean the bowl itself enough before putting it in, or maybe he just wasn’t meant to live.

Regardless of the cause, the ending doesn’t change.  
We will always remember how gold his scales were, and how he used to blow bubbles. We all have fond memories of how he ate his food, and was promoted to safety captain after less than fifteen minutes on the team. Perhaps, had he lived long enough, he could have one day driven our robot in the Hybrid mode. Now, with his passing, we will never know. So much potential, flushed away.

A list has already been made of preparations we would have to undergo before replacing fish, for the pain of Squirt’s loss is still a fresh hole that needs to be filled. I ask you, my fabulous female FIRSTers, for your fish-keeping advise, to help let any fish that may replace our SSB live longer than five hours.
I’m Scoutette, Buzzing off.