Fishy Business…

Fish tanks are great! Peaceful, relaxing, attractive décor items. 

We always had fish tanks; it was one of the first things we bought when we moved in together.

Over the years we nurtured our aquatic companions, feeding, cleaning, ph testing, rounds of chemicals and plants…it is quite a lot of work.  We didn’t mind, it was worth it…

We had quite a large tank set up in the lounge room of our home. Lovely.

One night, I was watching TV, maybe 9pm when I heard a noise.  Just a small dripping sound, nothing much.  It was raining and I thought it was just water dripping outside.  It got a bit louder, I investigated, couldn’t see anything, went back to my TV show.

Then all hell broke loose. 

The end piece of the tank caved in, and in such a way that the contents of the fish tank shot out at right angles for about a meter before striking the wall and floor…I didn’t quite know what to do. Well, you don’t do you?

It quickly became apparent that help was not going to be forthcoming, and my hands alone were not going to  do much against 300L of warm, fishy water determined to empty itself onto my lounge room floor.

Son, being a young teenager, therefore useless as tits on a bull didn’t even hear my screams…the neighbours two streets over must have, but not my boy! And husband had retired to the “bathroom” and was indisposed! Typical…

So I raced to the kitchen, grabbed some cooking pots and stuck them under the hole, nothing was stopping this baby but hopefully I could ferry some of the water outside and off my carpets!  Of course there is never a bucket when you need one…

The first emptying went well, a few splashes on the tiles near the back door but OK…the second, not so good.

You see, I didn’t factor the effect of bare wet feet on wet tiles whilst running with an overflowing pot of fish water…hmm, you can see where this ended up right?

Yes, in a scene that would have benefitted from the Benny hill soundtrack, as if in slow motion my feet slipped from underneath me, the pot went into the air, I landed on the back of my head, on the tiles, HARD.  Then the contents of the pot of water came to earth, or more precisely, my face, shortly followed by the pot. So not only did I nearly kill myself, but I flooded another room too.

My son had just emerged and witnessed my humiliation and whipped out to tell his father he thought I was dead, no checking on me though…OH NO!

When they emerged it was to find me, ice pack held to the back of my head trying to suck the water out of the carpet with the carpet cleaning machine, trying to stay upright…

Husband was despatched to find something to put the fish in, son called his elder brother to take me to hospital, by this stage I could barely speak and was shaking like a leaf, and I cleaned away feverishly…

It wasn’t until I got to hospital that we realised I had wet pants, from the fall of course, not sure anyone believed me though…

Skip to several hours later, a concussion and a soggy house.

I had never been concussed before, and hope never to be again…it hurts, and the dizziness and nausea are frightening.

Have you ever had to run carpet dryers throughout your whole house with a concussion? Then you haven’t lived! Those bastards are LOUD.

The final tally, 7 rooms water damaged, one fish tank destroyed, one head injury…memories best forgotten!

We don’t have a fish tank any more…turns out they aren’t that relaxing after all!