It's not every day I have deep, meaningful thoughts about fish.
That in and of itself is probably a good thing.
I used to really really like fish. I still do, but then... I was actually kind of obsessed with fish. I wanted to be a scuba diving marine biologist and have a pet shark in my house when I grew up. I did two book reports (probably more, but for some reason I haven't been able to force these two out of my memory) on undersea life. During visits to beaches, I could occasionally spout out useful information about why it's dangerous to step on sea urchins (because they're pointy). When I was even younger, I got a fish tank starter kit with a little brochure of the different kinds of freshwater fish that I could purchase, and I read it, multiple times a day, so I could plan out exactly which of the little creatures would get along.
...yeah.
Anywho. One day during a manatee special on National Geographic, I figured that marine biology might be a decent career for me, seeing as I waste all this time learning about these things anyway, I mean, might as well get paid for it. And that became my plan, and I was going to work at Sea World, and my future looked peachy. Sadly, one day I went snorkeling, kind of maybe had a minor panic attack-type occurence, and decided if I couldn't look at the fishies in their natural habitat, then I should maybe do something different.
I have recently gotten over my fear of snorkelling (today), and as a strictly unscientific observer, I have noticed a few things about fish that rather intrigue me.
Actually they're not that cool, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
First and foremost, fish are flippin' boring. And don't just say that's my "personal opinion." I followed the same fish around today for a few minutes, to see if it would wig out like people do, and it literally just swam around in a circle, nibbling off the same blotch of algae, and swimming away again, in the same circle, unaware of the mounting criticism behind him.
La de dahh, I'm a fish... Oh look there's that rock again! Hey! It tastes the same as it did two minutes ago! I think I'll swim around for sheer joy of the prospect! La la la la la laahhh...
Secondly, no one really gets excited about the brown fish. I feel sort of bad for them until the yellow ones swim by and distract me, because it's not like they do anything different (other than maybe swimming in a straight line). But all of the conservation laws revolve around the pretty fish, because the pretty fish are the ones that everyone wants to keep around! If you caught a pretty fish, you probably would throw it back and talk to your kids about how important it is to leave a good impact on the wilderness, but you catch a brown fish? Om nom nom.
Look at all those stupid orange fish. They think they're so hot. It's just like high school all over again.
Get it? School?
Thirdly, I might as well say it... Parrot fish look nothing like parrots.
We got back your name results. They've decided on "parrot fish."
What the heck is a parrot?
A large, tropical bird.
Uhh...
*awkward pause*
Better than "sea cucumber."
Touché.
Lastly. Have you noticed that the appreciation levels of fish are directly correlated not only to their colors, but to their appearance in the media? For example. Dolphins. Dolphins are friendly and cute. Dolphins are also posted all over T-Shirts and souvenirs and their own little TV shows (not that I would ever hate on Flipper). The result? People flip out over dolphins. Other forms of porpoise? Not so much.
What it should be: "DAD!! DAD!!! LOOK!!! It's a Zanclus comutus, more commonly known as a Moorish Idol, which is indigenous to tropical reefs such as this one!!"
What it really is: "DAD!!! DAAAD!!! LOOK!!!!! IT'S GILL FROM FINDING NEMO!!!!!"
So I wrote this whole thing out and then realized what I was having for dinner.
FISH STICKS.
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