Long Island Family Bids Somber Farewells to 6 Goldfish in 3 Weeks
A New York family just can't seem to keep their goldfish from going belly up.
There have been a lot of bathroom funerals of late at the Eidens house.
But it was the last rites for Ginger, captured on video and posted to Instagram, that made the New York clan social media stars.
In a somber, and hysterical, service, dad Brian Eidens sat on a bathtub ledge holding a cup bearing Ginger the goldfish's last remains. Flanked by his 6-year-old twin daughters and his 5-year-old son, he eulogized the departed.
"Ginger was a good girl," the 39-year-old father intoned. "She swam fast, she swam straight. And kinda sometimes in a circle, also." Heads bowed and hands clasped, his children nodded in agreement.
"She was cute and loving and may the toilet water flow to heaven with her." On cue, the commode was flushed by one of the twins. "Say amen."
"Amen," his children softly responded.
Ginger is but one of six goldfish deaths to rock the Long Island family in the past three weeks.
The mysterious plague started with a trip to a neighborhood carnival, where the three eldest children (newcomer Beau is only 2 months old) each won a goldfish, which they proudly bore home in plastic bags.
"We were going to get a tank," Brian said. So overnight, the trio was placed in a vase of water for safekeeping. The next morning, all three were belly up.
Brian explained to the children that their new fish had "passed away" and gathered the kids around the commode to say so long.
So what happened after that?
"We went to another carnival. Came home with three more fish," said mom Lacy. "Now they're dying one at a time."
Whitey, named for the pale streak on its tummy, went to the big aquarium in the sky on Thursday. He got an at-sea burial, too. The children are handling it pretty well, their parents said, even asking who gets to flush the toilet.
That left Snowflake, named for its silverish scales with an underbelly spot. The parents have bought a tank, replete with an air filter and a tiny ceramic pineapple. Snowflake likes to hang out in the pineapple, Brian said.
Thus far, the fish is still kicking. Brian and Lacy took the kids Thursday afternoon to a pet store, where they purchased three more goldfish, hopefully of hardier stock.
Alas, that appears to not be the case. One of the newbies, Pinky, succumbed just hours after arriving at its new home.
"We've kept the kids alive this long, so I don't know what's happening to the fish," Lacy said, laughing.
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