| Butters and the Goldfish: A finals week Story |
| Finals week hit - spring semester of my freshman year. There was one night that I remember studying for my education final. Bored and tired of reading, I walked across the hall to see Bryan, Greg, and Shannon, who also happened to be there. Just as I walked in Shannon looked at Greg and said "They're floating." Confused, I looked to Greg, who explained that Mike (his suitemate) had pissed him off and, as retaliation, he decided to make Mike's goldfish sick. So apparently Greg put a couple of drops of bleach in the aquarium. Shannon's comment suddenly made sense. Greg was visibly upset that he'd killed the fish, because his intention was just "to make them sick." So the boys went out to buy more goldfish. The fish they brought back looked nothing like the ones that Mike had before, but I suppose it was compensation for the dead fish. So we were then struck with the problem of having bleach water in the aquarium. I vividly remember Greg siphoning the water out of it, occasionally getting some in his mouth. Bleachy fish water. Yum! (Serves you right, Butters!) So after putting water in the aquarium (which, I assure you, wasn't at the right temperature) we had another problem: all the dirt that had settled to the bottom of the gravel was kicked up by the water. After a few minutes, the majority had settled out again, and Greg put the new fish in the tank. (By the way, I think they managed to live a few weeks!) At this point, I was going to just go back to studying but Ashley showed up so I started to fill her in on what had happened. As we were talking in the doorway, Greg ran in between us with one of the dead fish in the net. He bolted down the hallway and tossed it down the stairwell. Then he brought out the other two and flung them down the stairs as well. I believe I asked him why he didn't just flush them, but I'm not totally sure he had a reason. A few minutes later, after things had calmed down, I heard Rob Hazel's (an RA) voice in the hallway. I talked with him a bit and then saw him head for the stairwell. Stopping him, I stalled for a bit while motioning to Greg (behind Rob) to go get the fish out of there. Before he got the signal, though, Rob was on his way. Seconds after he got out the door, he came back in, looked right and Greg and said "I'm not going to ask, just get the fish out of there." and then he turned around and left. Greg and I cracked up in the hallway when Rob walked back in and said "Okay, I take that back. I have one question. Tell me they were dead before they hit the ground." We assured him that they were and Rob continued on his rounds. Things, again, had come to a lull when we heard the elevator and Mike opening his door. At this point I hid in the room with Katie, who was on the phone with her ex-boyfriend. I heard Mike yelling something - profanity, I believe (which is not his style) and then Shannon poked his head in and asked if he could seek refuge in our room. As he and I talked I sent Katie and IM with my summary of the night. "The shitteth hath hitteth the fan...eth." |