My 6-year-old has been asking for a pet for the past two years.  And we’ve always said no.

Why?

Because the timing wasn’t right. Because we didn’t have enough space for a dog and I’m allergic to cats. Just because Hubby and I didn’t want the extra responsibility and hassle.

After incessant pestering, we caved. We decided we could manage a goldfish. It’s low maintenance and took up little room.

The big day came when the entire family went to Petco and Logan skipped to the back of the store to the fish tanks. I walked up to a dense school of small, 49 cent goldfish while he stood beaming at a different tank. The one with the 3-inch gold fish.

Oh.

Looks like Logan and I didn’t share the same goldfish vision. I flagged down a Petco employee and inquired about the goldfish and its needs. She said the big ones needed at least a 10 gallon tank that had to be cleaned every week. No way.

The employee said a betta’s tank, however, only needed to be cleaned every two weeks and it was much smaller. ‘Nuff said.

Logan picked out a deep orange betta with beautiful fins. He named him Pat. Logan also picked out a gorgeous blue betta with grandoise fins for Ethan. His name was Skip.

We bought a tank that had a divider so the aggressive fish wouldn’t attack each other. Once home, we set up the aquarium and the following day put Pat and Skip in their new home with Skip on the left and Pat to the right. Soon, Skip wiggled past the divider to the other side.

Pat wasn’t about to get punked so he chased Skip back to his own side. I called Petco to see if this was normal since the tank was assembled properly. They were shocked that a fish got past the divider, but reiterated that bettas can NOT be housed in the same area or they will attack each other. I ended up putting Skip back in his small traveling case until we could figure out what to do. I didn’t want to risk him slipping past the divider again.

Several days went by fairly uneventfully with Pat enjoying his luxurious surroundings, a scaled down version of Spongebob’s pineapple home and a Krabby Patty restaurant. Logan loved the fish. He’d greet them every morning by blowing them kisses and would do the same just before bed.

One day before school, the quiet of our house was ripped apart by a frantic shriek: “I CAN’T SEE MY FISH!!!”

I was sure that the fish was sleeping in the pineapple again.

“Did you check the pineapple?”

“Yes, he’s not there.”

Uh oh.

I bolted downstairs to the fish tank. Peering inside, sure enough, no Pat. In fact there was no proof of life in the entire aquarium. OK, I thought. Pat is probably dead, but where? When I was a kid, I remember a couple fish jumped out of the back of our 20 gallon aquarium, maybe that happened to Pat.

Alas, no. There wasn’t a fish carcass on the floor, it was like the little sucker vanished into thin air water.

I lifted up the tank’s lid, removing the light and top of the filter. And there he was.

Pat had somehow gotten on top of the filter and he was partially submerged, gasping for water.

I grabbed the fish net, scooped up Pat and plopped him back in the tank. I breathed a sigh of relief… until Pat started to swim upside down. Upon closer inspection, one of his fins had been mangled.

A horrified Logan saw it too and wailed. “PAT!! PAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT!!” I held him as he sobbed.

Meanwhile, I swear I saw Skip smirk.

Logan had to go to school soon and I was certain Pat wouldn’t be alive to welcome him home, so I got him calm and we gave the still-swimming-upsidedown Pat a tearful goodbye.

That evening, we held a small funeral for Pat, much like they did for Rudy’s fish on The Cosby Show.

After the services, we moved Skip into the Spongebob-themed penthouse, where he darted about, relishing in the new space.

A couple weeks later we came home from picking Logan up from school and he walked up to the tank to greet Skip.

“AAAA!” He screamed. I looked in the tank to see nothing but shredded bits of Skip’s beautiful blue fins.

Stunned, I lifted up the tank’s lid again and yep, there were some chunks of Skip in the filter. The damn aquarium had taken another life.

Since Skip belonged to Ethan, Logan wasn’t as devastated, so I put the tank outside for Hubby to clean when he got home.

So now we’re back at square one, with Logan asking us for a pet. He’s threatened to ask Santa for a puppy.

Regardless, we’re keeping all life forms away from the killer tank.