My Obsession's Name is Nigel

You know those people who have an obsession that you simply cannot understand? Whether it be a tv show or a particular card or computer game, or a color that they’ve decked out their entire bedroom in, whatever it is you simply cannot fathom why on earth they would waste that much money and time on something so ridiculous! And all they want to do is tell you more about this obsession that, honestly, you could care less about? Well, I have become one of those people. And my obsession? My fish, Nigel. And now I am going to tell you about him. He is downright adorable, like SO cute. I know, he’s a fish-- fish are not cute, they have faces that have a permanent expression of complete grumpiness pasted onto them and never reward any of your actions with a smile, and they don’t do anything but eat, swim, sleep, swim, and poop. But all of that does not matter one little bit, I absolutely love this little fish. Every time I walk through the door of our apartment I holler out, “Nigel, I’m home! How are you doing little Nigely-Nige?” But you would do the same thing if you had a fish who eagerly came rushing up to the edge of his bowl toward you, grumpy face and all, and fluttered his little fins in sheer excitement and love (in all reality he probably is coming over to see if I will feed him, but I like to think that his crazy fluttering is out of pure love for me).

I found this little useless container lying around my house and I washed it out and stuck it into his bowl and it has now become his home. At night he goes in there and sleeps, his little purple nose just poking out. As soon as he sees that we are up in the morning, he comes rushing out of his house, pushing his nose up against the part of the bowl closest to where we are, fins whirring at their highest speed-- ah-dorable! And because I know you are just dying to know more about my fish, when we feed him, he cannot simply eat his food in one gulp. He grabs a “betta-bit” with his mouth, chews on it and spits it out, swims around the bowl for a couple of laps, grabs the betta-bit again, chews some more, spits it again before heading around the bowl another couple of times and so on until finally the food has disappeared. We even took a family picture with Nigel in it; I don't think that is not normal to count a fish as a member of a family. So, as you can see, I have an unexplainable obsession with a little fish named Nigel, but at least I am aware of how ridiculous this obsession is, even if that doesn’t change how obsessed I am about him.