Finnegan the Galactic Wonder Fish

Meet Finnegan, or Finney for short, the latest addition to Casa Troy and Firda. He’s a Betta, also known as the Siamese fighting fish, also known as Cupang in Indonesian. Curiously, Cupang is also Indonesian for hickey.

It all began on Tuesday when I spotted this aquarium in a store at the mall. I thought if I were a fish, I would love to live there. I showed it to Troy and he said I could have it if I wanted it. Doh, of course I wanted it! So we bought it and took it home. I decided to put the aquarium in the bathroom, next to the sink, near the toilet bowl for easy maintenance. I thought the fish would like to live closer to their, um, highway to heaven. That night it was decided that we were getting a Betta instead of a goldfish. The next day I started preparing the aquarium. Rinsing the inside of the aquarium, washing the stones, letting the water sit overnight, you know the drill. And then came the day we had been waiting for: the day we were getting the fish!

We went to this pet store at the mall and straight to the fish section. Okay, so we had to check out some puppies first, but whatever. I had my eyes on four Bettas and it was hard for me to decide which one to get because I liked them all just as much. What a girl to do? Well, I just solved the problem the Indonesian way. I sang this song while pointing to a different Betta with every syllable clockwise: “Bas bis bus, pi-sang re-bus. Du-it se-ra-tus, gu-nung me-le-tus!” The song ended when I was pointing at this particular bluish red Betta, so it was decided. We were taking that little fella home.

Putting the fish into the aquarium was a messy process. I’ll spare you the detail. But half an hour or so after we got home, the fish was settled in his new home. The first thing he checked out was the rocket, which wasn’t surprising since he was a Galactic Wonder Fish after all. Then came the hardest part: picking a name. I wanted to call him Marty because on the box that came with the aquarium it was written “Marty the Galactic Wonder Fish not included.” But Troy said it wasn’t a very original name. That was when he came up with Finney, short for Finnegan, which I liked. So Finnegan it is.

Finnegan came into our lives on my mother’s birthday. She’d be 62 years old if she was still alive. She would’ve loved the crazy aquarium and the fish. I’m sure she was smiling down on us. (More photos of Finney here.)