The Winter settles in your thoughts just like the inversion over downtown Salt Lake City. A metallic imitation fog chokes the enjoyment out of your mind and makes you want for only a glimmer of that desert solar — the identical solar you cursed six months earlier.
Some combat the oppression of winter with train, however you received’t discover me jogging within the 6 a.m. darkness. Some wrap themselves in classic cardigans and crochet by the hearth, however I’ve neither specialty knit nor fireplace.
Though the southwest just isn’t topic to the howling winds of the Great Plains (famously inflicting settlers with “prairie madness”), or the moist unskiable snows of New England, our neck of the woods faces uninteresting, darkish, chilly months simply the identical.
How does one endure the season, 12 months after 12 months? Some could inform to maintain a constant schedule and to find time for family and friends. Those issues could assist. But I’ve a little bit of novel recommendation borne of lived expertise — purchase a fish.
Buying a fish
Walk into your native massive field pet retailer and head on to the wall of water. Do not be tempted by animals with hair. Approach the array of fish tanks with exaggerated warning, to speak that you simply imply no hurt. Employees and retailer patrons will respect this gesture.
Watch unique grey-speckled zebras and inexperienced neon tetras drift by silk crops. Notice how they casually keep away from the translucent shrimp, furiously faucet dancing on the marbles lining the underside of 150-gallon tanks. One jet-black Molly fish breaks from its shoal and wriggles as much as the glass, the place its completely smiling mouth gapes at you.
After briefly observing the jeweled armor of tiny sea creatures, you’ll run into a lady with mournful eyes, the colour of the turbulent ocean.
She has witnessed a lot in her day, as you’ll quickly study.
“Can I help you, young man?” The fish girl will ask you, if you’re a younger man like myself. Answer within the affirmative. “I am looking for my first pet fish.”
She will shake her head in dismay.
“How big is your tank?” Tell her you acquire a one-gallon bowl from a unique big-box retailer. She will shudder, earlier than directing your consideration to the minimal tank sizes listed underneath every fish description.
None are lower than 30 gallons.
She will declare that “Swimming in the bowl you bought would be like living in the linen closet.” After feeling sufficiently responsible, brace your self for this girl’s rationalization of the shop’s spectacular aquatic infrastructure. 20,000 gallons of water backstage, biking by each tank. Filters the dimensions of workplace printers, modified thrice a day.
Temperature, pH, and hardness — all repeatedly monitored.
This is a chance to introspect in your lack of ability to successfully take care of the dwelling issues in your life. Take a second to meditate in your hubris, believing you could possibly present a great life to somewhat fish for lower than what you paid to your 2001 Dodge Stratus.
Turn your gaze to the bookcase stuffed with betas in take-out containers. Realize, regardless of the lady’s bowl-size protestation, that you’re able to offering for this very self-sufficient breed of fish.
Choose the one that appears essentially the most dwelling (not all shall be shifting). Get tricked into shopping for a $20 tank heater you don’t want. Accept the pamphlet given to you by your Virgil-like information — “So you just bought a beta, now what?”
Carefully drive that candy little swimmer dwelling.
Taking care of your new buddy
The winter is chilly, however by this level in your fish possession journey, your coronary heart needs to be warming.
Congratulations, you may have simply crammed your empty life with the duty of caring for one thing that’s depending on you for survival. This new buddy, Ribby-Mae Bowflex, will power you to get up within the morning to sprinkle precisely three pellets of meals in her water.
You will fear concerning the temperature of that cup bowl in the course of the evening (good factor you acquire that heater). You will begin to dream of fancier crops to make Ribby-Mae blissful. You will analysis the pure proclivities of this creature (they take little naps!).
Some could say: Are you compensating for a scarcity of human companionship? Ignore the haters.
Ribby-Mae swims quicker whenever you stroll up the steps, isn’t that cute?
When you stare at your pet, it is best to be capable of really feel somewhat glimmer of non-public change, that promise of a future Spring. Your small acts of care, day after day, carry good into the world.
After going by this journey of shopping for and caring for a fish, it’s possible you’ll be prepared to maneuver on to greater issues, like houseplants, quiet birds or, sometime, low-maintenance people.
In time, the earth will thaw, bushes will blossom and also you’ll have survived the Winter blues.
Take my recommendation. Go purchase a fish.
