Carol’s Column

A versatile bowl fits two fish sandwiches

Life is full of problems so why should the Lazar family be excluded from anguish and angst?

It was my youngest unmarried son who caused the latest crisis.

“Ma,” he said in a phone call from Grahamstown, “I have to have a travelling fish bowl. Immediately.”

“A travelling fish bowl? What is a travelling fish bowl?”

He sighed which is a common occurrence when teenage sons speak to their mentally inferior, half-witted, dullard mothers. “Ma, a travelling fish bowl is a specially designed portable bowl in which jet-setting goldfish can be transported.”

“Ah,” I said.

“You can’t get them in Grahamstown, but apparently all the travel and pet shops in Johannesburg stock them.”

“Ah,” I said again. I got the message. But: “Why don’t you just stick Clinton Friedman and Natasha into a plastic bag and fly home holding them. It’s not a long flight.”

I could hear my son was horrified. “Ma, I would never do that to Clinton Friedman and Natasha. I mean, would you like to travel in a plastic bag? It would be cruel and inhuman and they’d feel claustrophobic. This could affect their psychological development for the rest of their lives.”

“I understand,” I muttered, “I will do my best for Clinton Friedman and Natasha.”

What mother could live with the guilt of knowing that she’d turned her youngest son’s goldfish into psychological misfits?

The first pet shop I entered had vast fish-tank-lined walls, birds in cages and fluffy creatures rolling in a box. This was obviously the correct place in which to be.

“Can I see your travelling fish bowls?” I asked the haddock-faced assistant behind the counter.

He twitched. “Modom, it is unhealthy for fish to travel. It disturbs their equilibrium, their balance and their floating mechanism. It is extremely unhealthy to transport fish.”

“So your travelling fish bowls are out of stock,” I said.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted. It seemed that every Transvaal goldfish was flying or driving somewhere because not one of the pet shops I visited had a travelling fish bowl. Indeed, many of them hadn’t even heard of such a thing.

This was serious. I poured myself some orange juice and vodka and phoned my good friend Betty which is what I always do when I have a serious problem.

“It’s easy,” she said. “Have one made. Phone Humphrey Habbel, he’s the finest design engineer in town, and commission a bowl.”

I phoned Humphrey Habbel. “Good morning Mr Habbel, my name is Carol Lazar and I need help desperately. I have a serious bowl problem,” I said.

“Look, if we’re going to be discussing such an intimate problem, you can call me Humphrey,” he said charmingly. Then: “You must eat lots of bran and roughage and personally, I find prune juice really is the best thing to set you free.”

There was silence. “Bowl not bowel,” I said weakly.

“Bowl?”

To cut a long story short, it seemed that a designer travelling fish bowl was not an inexpensive affair and with a leather handle and inside decor, it would come to R324. Which was excessive considering Clinton Friedman and Natasha only cost 50c at the flea market anyway. When I got home, there was a message from Betty. I called her immediately. “I’ve found you a travelling fish bowl,” she said excitedly, “it’s in the pet shop in Norwood and it’s the last one left. I’ve put down a deposit and they’ve reserved it for you.”

It was perfect. A compact oblong design, it was made of perspex and came complete with a gay blue roof, a sunshine yellow handle and small slits in the roof to enable Clinton Friedman and Natasha to breathe or whatever it was that goldfish did.

I brought it home and put it on the sideboard.

This morning I woke up early in order to get it despatched to Grahamstown immediately as time was short. It had vanished.

I couldn’t believe it, I searched everywhere but the travelling fish bowl was gone.

I reported the theft to the Parkwood police and phoned my husband to tell him about the tragedy.

“What travelling fish bowl?” he said.

I told him exactly what I’d told the police and gave him a full description.

“You’re mad,” he exclaimed. “The thing is sitting on my desk with my tuna sandwiches inside. I thought it was a new-fangled lunchbox.”

I understand why marriage is, at the best of times, a precarious affair.

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