Meet Bob. If you've noticed, Bob is a goldfish. You may have also noticed that he is currently residing in a flower vase. That's because Bob was an unexpected and somewhat unwelcome guest.

The story of how Bob came to reside in the CrazyHouse is actually pretty funny. Last month, Blake and I went to Cornbelly's. Click Cornbelly's to see some highlights and pictures from last year's visit. It's a combination corn maze and Fall festival with lots of fun games and activities for the kids. It's our favorite Halloween tradition.

So, Blake was doing the Paintball activity, where you shoot these paintballs at targets. The boy behind the counter said that they were offering a special prize just for that night. If you hit a special target, you get a goldfish. Immediately, I said "Blake, don't hit that one, we don't want a fish". I like cats and dogs, but I hate fish. They're so messy and they always die and then the kid is all heartbroken, so you go out and get them another one and it's just an unbreakable cycle.

Well, of course, the little stinker takes aim and immediately hits the special target - damn it! So the boy reaches behind the counter and gives him one of those little plastic bags with the goldfish in it. Oh goody.

So, for the rest of the evening, we're carrying this darn fish around and everyone is asking us where we got the fish. At one point, he even had one of the workers "babysitting" the darn thing so he could go on the rides, so I had some random girl come up to me and ask if Bob was still doing OK. And I'm kind of wondering because no one else seems to have a fish.

Finally, by the end of the evening I figured it out. Someone must have given that boy a fish that he didn't want, so he hit on this brilliant idea of giving it away to some random little kid as a prize. Yeah, MY random kid - ugh. That is how Bob came to be living in my flower vase on my kitchen counter....


PS: I did have to add that Bob does seem to be a pretty smart goldfish. Like everything else around here, he has learned to beg for food. I'm serious. It's hilarious. Whenever he sees one of us come near his bowl, he swims to the side of the bowl and goes crazy until one of us drops in a few crumbs of food. At least he's a smart goldfish!