I made my grandma cry.

Yes, I made my Grandma cry.  I am a horrible person.

The story starts my sophomore year of college when the house I lived in changed the rules and allowed us to have pet fish.  Well after 3 goldfish, 5 random baby fish, and 2 jumping shrimp (in one semester)(jumping shrimp jump out of bowls without lids) I still hadn't learned my lesson so I bought a Beta fish named Willie.

I bought the Beta fish the 2nd week of school in January even though I was planning to go to Virginia for the summer because I figured he would be dead by then.  Well, he wasn't. So naturally I asked other Beta fish owners if they wanted to start some fish fights in the bathroom toilet and no one took me up on it (I was shocked) so I had a friend lined up to fish sit for the summer.  Well, then I forgot to get him ready for travel, she left, and then another friends mom was a willing fish sitter.

I returned to school for my senior year and all of a sudden a fish appeared on my desk (I forgot I owned one). So, I continued to do the fish owner thing and sporadically cleaned it's bowl and fed it when I remembered it existed, which was maybe once a week. Yes, I'm a horrible fish owner.  side note: I am much better with pets with legs that remind me they exist.  Yes, if I ever get married I fully intend to practice co-parenting on a dog before I am ready for a child. For the record, I don't think childhood pets count as practice, because they always loved my mom more than me so I felt no need to be the one to feed them.

Over Christmas break, I went home for a week and forgot my fish at my college house, then I was with my Grandma for 4 weeks and so I rescued him and stuck him in my room at Grams.  I worked during the days and towards the end of break I noticed my bedroom light would be on when I got home.  Turns out my Grandma was in my room, talking to him so he didn't get lonely and she'd leave the light on so he wouldn't become depressed..... then I went back for my last semester of school.

After I graduated I moved back in with my Grandma.  My fish lived in my room for approximately 4.5 weeks before 'he'd like it better if he was on the living room table & could see out the table'.  My Grandma would ask me how much I fed him, if I fed him, and how often.  Sometimes I lied because in my experience Grandma's like to feed things & if he went from being fed whenever I remembered he existed to every other day, it'd be a shock to his system.  Slowly, she took over the feeding roll and he was fed every other day.

By Christmas he was moved to the kitchen table (my Grandma sits at the kitchen table to watch tv, read the paper, talk on the phone, etc.) so she would talk to him randomly all day long and he would 'wiggle' and follow her finger whenever she did.  

Fast forward to August this year, where whenever my Grandma would be gone for a trip, she left me a feeding schedule and Willie got fed a small pinch and a big pinch on rotating nights, denoted by marks on my Grams pocket book calendar.

Tragically, after a month or so of worrying if he was sick and what you would do with sick fish, my Grams made a trip to the aquarium store in late October and got some medicine for him.  He ended up dying that night.  It was a Saturday and I didn't get home from a working weekend until the Sunday night at 9pm. 

Legitimately, my Grandma's fish died, that I basically gave her by force because she has a GIANT heart, and I wasn't there until 24 hours plus later.  She cried when she told me the news.  I think she is still kinda sad. Luckily, my aunt and I got her her very own fish last January so she is not without a fish. She also has to worry about all her offspring and their offspring and fuss over her squirrels, so she has things to take her mind off of him, but I made my Grandma cry.  I never cared about that fish (yes I'm horrible) but my Grandma did and it breaks my heart that he's gone.

So here's to you Willie.  For after getting off Wal-Mart's shelves living more of a rough life and gracefully transitioning into living like a king over the span of 2.5 years. Thanks for wiggling at Grandma and giving me quality twitter material. Thanks for being you.

Don't worry cousins and brother, I have worst grandchild of 2014 firmly locked down.