Farewell Pickle

When Nyla turned 1 we thought it would be a great idea to get her a goldfish. She would go all nutty over the fish in Walmart, and from what we had heard goldfish only live for a few months, so we did it.
Well... 3 bloody years later the damned fish was still alive. Yes THREE looooong fishy years. I don't know what kind of mutant goldfish we bought, but this thing could have survived a nuclear holocaust... and sometimes looked like it had been through one. Nothing could kill this bugger... it even lost all its fins at one point...then re-grew them. At the end he had even grown some kind of fur (for real... fish fur).
I personally don't like fish. I don't find them relaxing or pet-like in any way. Every time I cleaned the water I'd get nasty, fishy shit water in my mouth somehow, and really... that is sooo wrong. I don't like the creepy, surprised looking fish stare, or the whole 'breathing' water thing. It's just not natural. I won't say I grew to love Pickle (yes, she named her fish Pickle)... or even like him, but I sort of grew to respect the grumpy old man-ness of him. The sheer tenacity. I can get on board with that.
Ummmm, where was I??? Oh yes, her beloved fish recently passed away. I honestly didn't think she'd be that upset, because really... its a fish... But I was wrong. She was completely broken hearted. She sobbed her little heart out. Heart wrenching sobs... soooo sad.
I wanted to do a funeral for Pickle and bury him in the field somewhere, but she looked at me like I was a moron and said "That makes no sense. Fish don't live under the ground, they live in water." Yeeeeah... so I had to figure out a way to get rid of the Pickle remains that would make sense to a 3 year old (and would get him out of the fridge cuz EWWWWWWW). Sigh... I'm not even going to tell you what I did. Why you may ask? Because I don't feel like it. I know everyone likes to use death as a teaching moment. I REALLY am not into that discussion right now, but I can share that Nyla is perfectly at peace with where she believes Pickle is. She's happy that he's not sick and furry anymore. AND she's unfortunately saving up for a new fish. I'm going to try to steer her towards something that stares less...
The moral of this story?? If you don't like fish, don't buy them because they never die. They just sit around being all gross and fishy.