Leaping Plecos!

Meet Roger, one of my neurotic fish. Roger is a shy guy who, in the last three months, has left the safety of the fish tank's treasure chest only once. Even then, it was only under extreme duress (Rachel poked him with a spatula until he freaked out and left, only to return as soon as the lights were out).

Well apparently, sometime around 10:30 this morning, he decided to be brave and explore the outside world. I was out back weeding and heard my roommate come in from a Costco run. I yelled "Hey" from the backyard and she replied "Uh, Anna, I think you should come here and take a look at this?" Something about her tone of voice...I took off the gardening gloves and came in through the back doors. "What is that?" she asked, pointing to the floor in front of the tank. I actually thought it looked like a lonely sock, dropped in the hall on the way to the laundry room. I walked a little closer, though, and felt a slow horror growing as I realized that it was no sock. My suspicions were confirmed as I knelt down to find Roger, laying on the floor in front of the fish tank.

There was no water around him and he looked pretty dry. "Debbie!" I said, "I think Roger committed suicide!?" Debbie was all concern - "Oh no! What should we do??" We stood there for a moment, exclaiming that he was dead! and wondering how to pick him up, what to do with his poor dried-up body. I envisioned a nice burial in the backyard, maybe planting some flower seeds over the body and calling the whole bed the "Roger Pleco Memorial Garden" or something. I saw the spatula on the shelf under the fish tank (leftover from Rachel's torment session) and decided to pick him up and kind-of flip him over onto a plastic lid to carry him out back for the funeral. I poked him, just to be sure he was dead and, sadly, no movement.

I was sliding the spatula under his body, and was just about to look up to comment to Debbie that his neurosis had driven him to his death, when Roger suddenly freaked out and started flipping his fins and tail all over the place. I screamed - Debbie screamed - I dropped the spatula and screamed some more - Debbie ran around the table and screamed some more. After a moment of pure gut emotion, I realized that my subconscious fears of Roger flipping up onto my face and suctioning a bite out of my cheek were ridiculous and stopped screaming. There was a moment of heavy, panicked, breathing then..."Debbie! Ummm...I think he's still alive..."

Luckily, there was a small tupperware container on the table. After some quick reasoning, I stepped over to the tank and scooped some water into the tupperware. Oops, accidentally scooped up a fish with the water. Dumped water and fish out and scooped up some more, fish free, water. Then I picked up the spatula and tried to slide it under Roger who immediately started flipping out (literally) again. I almost screamed, but managed to be brave and flip him into the tupperware. He immediately sank down into the makeshift tank and started sucking on the bottom...we decided to go ahead and throw him back in the fish tank, mainly because we didn't know where else to put him. He swam around chaotically for a minute or two, bumping into things like he was drunk until he found his treasure chest. He promptly swam inside and suctioned on - I just checked on him and he's still there, still aliveand I don't think he will ever come out again.