The Diet of Worms

What’s on my mind? This is the story of two goldfish, a thunderstorm, and the Diet of Worms - a 500-year-old double entendre that only nerds will get. Nonetheless, this really is about the (lower-case) diet of worms.

Two goldfish entered our lives in the Summer of 2019, thanks to three years of nagging dramatic sighing on my part. Goldfish need a home, and so my long-held dream of a garden pond came to fruition. I promised Himself the pond would cost next-to-nothing, but I’ve never been much good at calculus and abacus and stuff like that so I was off a couple of digits. 

A-ny-hoo, after two garden guys dug, graveled, leveled, lined, rocked, waterfalled, rocked some more, and planted, the pond came in at $3,100 and change. Maybe a couple of hundred dollars in change, but it’s only money, I cheerfully told someone who threatened to moi-duh someone else whose names I’ve repressed. These goldfish are now worth their weight in ... well, gold.

Garden pond goldfish are almost maintenance-free. The woman who ran the watering hole where I bought the fish said: “People who feed pond fish do it for themselves, not the fish. Throw them a Cheerio now and then if you feel like it, but you don’t need to.” So we didn’t. 

A brilliant example of smart marketing: Pets that don’t need feeding (in an outdoor pond, at least).

We named our goldfish Big Fish and Little Fish, mainly because they were. They thrived on mosquito larvae, slime, bacteria, and whatever other other gunk accumulated in the pond. That was last year. This year, everything changed. 

Not knowing the sex of our fish, I read a post on the Mating Habits of Goldfish, hoped for the best, and got it. This past Spring, gelatinous eggs glistened on the underside of the lily pads in our pond, exactly as the Mating Habits of Goldfish post said would happen if a fertile male and a fertile female goldfish became friends with benefits. 

Both fish paid special attention to these eggs, even assuming a vertical position in their eagerness to lap-lap-lap them. I hadn’t progressed far enough into the Mating Habits of Goldfish post to know Big Fish and Little Fish were happily eating their young - not kissing them, as I’d assumed. In the unlikely chance an infant survived egg-hood, its parents’ fishy instincts would again kick in, programming them to eat any fish younger than two weeks. 

After dabbling in cannibalism, the (presumably) remorseful and grieving Big Fish retired to her/his hiding place in the pond, while Little Fish circled the now-lonely waters on her/his own. I think the Mating Habits of Goldfish post had something in there about the Sexual Identification of boy goldfish, girl goldfish, and gefilte fish, but it was too racy for me and I ignored it. Watching Little Fish do the butterfly stroke, we saw she’d grown at least an inch since Winter, so we renamed her/him Semi-Big Fish.

Big Fish stayed in her/his hiding place two long weeks. I worried s/he might be depressed, or worse, might be holding out for another taste of car-r-rne! I also worried s/he might have lost her/his taste for pond gunk and Cheerios. 

Against my Delicate Feminine Instincts, I spaded the garden for a fat, juicy worm. Dropping it into the water, I watched it drift to the bottom of the pond. 

Having never seen such a thing before, Semi-Big Fish lazed toward the worm, upon which Big Fish rocketed from her/his hiding place to snatch the worm and race ’round the pond, the doomed worm trailing from her/his jaws like a streamer, with Semi-Big Fish in cold-blooded pursuit.

“Himself! Come! Come now!” I screamed. (Mrs. H, our neighbor across the way, dropped her dandelion puller and immediately snapped to attention. She, for sure, would have read the racy bits in the Sexual Identification of Fish post.) 

Pedal to the metal, Semi-Big Fish chased Big Fish ’round the pond, but the worm was almost gone. “Gimme a worm! More! More! More!” I  cried. 

(Head tossed back, a light sheen of sweat shone on the eavesdropping Mrs. H's smiling face).

Himself dropped four worms into the pond: Muscling Semi-Big Fish out of the way, Big Fish scored three. Over time, we denuded the garden of worms. “Not good for the soil,” Himself muttered.

“I don’t care about the soil! Our fish are starving!” (The post about the Mating Habits of Goldfish and the Sexual Identification of Fish also had a section on the Feeding Habits of Goldfish. It was there I learned goldfish are gluttons. They’d eat a schnitzel, if they could.)

Over time and a steady diet of worms, we noticed Semi-Big Fish had grown even longer over the past few weeks. Both s/he and Big Fish were becoming heavy weights in the Goldfish Dep’t. How big is big? Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to dunk my arm in that pond. We’ve now renamed them Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2. 

Our frantic search for worms has left the garden looking like it’s been savaged by moles. We don’t care. Last night brought a thunderstorm, followed by heavy rain - a godsend! In an effort to escape drowning, about a million worms wriggled onto the driveway and the road. 

Himself scooped up as many as he could: They were about to meet their Waterloo. 

Pavlov, take a bow: Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2 now circle at the precise moment Himself bends over the pond, a worm in his fingers. Even after they’re stuffed full of worms, they want more, more, more! (Which would definitely have interested Mrs. H, had she not gone to take a cold shower.)

We’re exhausted. Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2 are still growing. They now control our lives. I vaguely wonder if they’d fancy a chunk of pot roast. It’s probably time to rename them, again. We’re leaning to Moby Dick.

© Nicole Parton, 2020