Hello, everyone. Please allow me to introduce you to Bruce, our fish. See him? "Swimming" up there at the top of his tank?

I think Bruce would like very much to go live with a family who actually cares about him. And feeds him regularily. And doesn't accidentally leave THE BACK DOOR OF THE HOUSE OPEN WHEN IT'S BELOW FREEZING OUTSIDE ALL DAY, CAUSING HIS WATER TEMPERATURE TO PLUMMET TO 48 DEGREES OR SO AND ALSO? HELLO? I'M STARVIN' OVER HERE!

He's actually been floating around near the top of his tank for the past week and a half, prompting me to scratch my head every other day when I remember to feed him. Today I finally googled beta+fish+illnesses and found that these online diagnos-y type websites for fish are nearly as complicating as those for children.

I learned that my water may be too hard, my water may be too soft, the water may be too cold, he may have fin rot, he may have some sort of bacterial infection in his bladder, he may be eating too much (although highly unlikely, what with the feeding patterns around here and everything.)

My diagnosis? For a $2.99 fish that I rescued from a Wal-Mart glass of brown and blue water that was approximately the size of my fist, Bruce has lived a good life. Three years, in fact, which is about 2.5 years longer than I thought he would. So, I changed his water, warmed it up and didn't feed him tonight. We'll see how the advice from Google University pans out.

Maybe he can go live at Mangy Moose Acres. I hear the feeding's good over there.