Soft Spot

Everyone has a soft spot. We all have something that we can't resist. For me, it's hamburgers, especially from In-N-Out. I consider myself quite lucky actually. My weakness only costs a couple of bucks so I can afford to give in every once in a while. For others their weakness might be chocolate or even seeking thrills. When a soft spot involves years of commitment following each indulgence, you have to be careful.

I suppose a lot of moms have a soft spot for thier kids, so my wife is really quite normal in that area, but let's take a look at this mathematically and see where it leads. Start with a soft spot for her kids, multiply that by five, then add pets and what do you get? Now do you see where this is going?

Last October we ended up with two new cats and fish all in the same day. For the past eight months the cats and the fish have coexisted somewhat peacefully. Sure the cats like to drink the water from the fish bowl and taunt the little guy from time to time, but there has yet to be any real harm. This friendly banter, however, makes my wife nervous. Recently Mommy started complaining that the fish bowl was big and didn't really have a place where it belonged so she came up with a plan. After I had committed myself to blowing up the inflatable swimming pool and watching the younger kids in it, Mommy said, "I'm taking Zach and Maddie to the store to get a new fish bowl."

That sounded innocent enough, except for the fact that she was going to a pet store and I would be powerless to stop her. "Oh no," I thought to myself. "This will not end well." As I sat on the couch in the garage watching the kids swimming in the driveway like the good Southern California redneck that I am, I thought of something that I needed to ask my son, so I called my wife's phone and asked to speak to him.

Guess what Little Miss Soft Spot said to me as soon as she answered? "Can we get an aquarium and a bunch of fish? They're on sale."

"Ahhhhhhhh!" my inner voice silently screamed as the outer voice simply said, "No."

Fortunately she kinda listened. Instead of buying a huge aquarium she decided to scale back, but still insisted that Zach's Beta fish, Arrow, needed a companion. Betas have to be alone since they tend to fight with each other, but fortunately, someone in the land of pet inventions came up with a little fish bowl that is divided into two sections so you can have two Betas. What good is a two part fish bowl with only one fish?

For the most part disaster was averted, but not entirely. Now we have two dogs, two cats, two fish, and a hamster. Since the first fish was already named Arrow, Maddie named her new fish Bow. Now we have a Bow and Arrow sitting on our mantle. Who else can make that claim?