I'll Call Him Cocoa

Cocoa the Puffer Fish. Isn't he adorable? Okay, not conventionally. It's more like he's so ugly he's cute. But just tell me you could resist those big, blue eyes. C'mon. Or that little fishy smile. At least I think it's a smile.

I want a puffer so badly, but for us to bring him home we'd have to get another saltwater tank. That's the line Paul uses, at least. Subtly, as in, "I wonder if we move one of your bookcases if there'd be room for another tank… Theoretically, I mean."

That's how marriage works. Once you hit that twenty year mark he thinks fish tanks are sexy, and I'm hot for a puffer fish. So hot I bring my camera into a fish store and take pictures of it looking at me longingly. And I have to fight the urge to stuff dollar bills in his tank.

It's all very, very sordid.

Part of the fun of having a puffer fish would be trying to provoke it into puffing. I'd be forever jumping in front of the tank, yelling BOOGA BOOGA!, trying to get the little guy to balloon up. And he'd develop a nervous twitch. On his little eyelid. Or where his eyelid would be, if fish had them.

Until I mature, maybe it's just better I bring my camera to the fish store. Before Greenpeace hears about this.