Please Welcome the Newest Member of the Gerdes Household

General Sherman!

We got him Sunday, and I am in love. I know General Sherman isn't the best name for the fish of a girl from the South, but Fuzzy suggested it and it stuck. Other unofficial names for him are Genny, Sherman, Teeny Little Super Guy and Abraham Fishington Reid II.

I've always wanted a fish. Growing up, I used to pour over the Christmas Sears Catalog because it would have the best selection of awesome fish tanks. I used to daydream about having a clownfish named Cicely. I have no idea why that name, but I would draw clownfish all day and obsessively look at them in pet stores. I wanted a maroon and yellow one as well as the typical orange and white, and I imagined awesome blue clowfish and purple ones, too. (after Finding Nemo came out, suddenly all the clownfish in pet stores were all gone. Go figure.) Oddly enough, I am terrified of seeing dead fish in an aquarium, so I would be scared and excited everytime I entered the aquarium section.

So yesterday, we stopped in to PetSmart to get some Parker food and oooh and aaah over the kitties, birds and hampsters as we always do. There was a shelf of Betta fish, and we looked at them, and looked at them and looked at the starter kits and kept browsing. I could tell Fuzzy wanted one, so when it was almost time to go, I said to Fuzzy, "Do you want to get a fish?" His response: "Do you?" and we got all giddy and excited and went and picked one out. I love that Fuzzy and I can make the simplest act of buying a fish the most exciting and exhilarating thing ever--everything is an adventure!

General Sherman now lives on our mantle, and it is hard not to stare at him constantly. We have a fish!