Fish or Fabric?

Before I began sewing, my main hobby was freshwater aquariums. At one point, I had 7 aquariums in various rooms of our house. My daughter complains because fish are soooo boring, but of course she is too young to understand that THAT'S THE POINT. There's no drama with fish: no barking in the middle of the night, no peeing all over your clothes, no standing on your chest as you lie in bed early in the morning and biting your nose as soon as you wake up in order to say, "Bitch, get up and make me some Fancy Feast." (God, I loved that cat. He came to live with me just after I graduated from college, and he was the best cat EVER. He liked to play tag, loved tummy rubs and tortilla chips, and always refused to eat alone. He was my best buddy, until I decided to move in with that damn cello player and his roommate, who also had a cat. The roommate thought that T.J. ought to be able to roam free, though I felt he should be an indoor cat - and, of course, my boy got hit by a car.)

Moving to our new house was too stressful for most of my fish, and now I only have 3 tanks set up, with only one tank containing a handful of fish. So I've been perusing the fish books and many online sites which sell fish, and I really, really just want to blow a wad of cash on some lovely little swimmers, but then I'll have no money leftover for fabric this month.

Part of the problem is that there are so few convenient places nearby to buy fish. Let me rephrase that: there are so few places to buy fish where the sales staff aren't total douchebags. That's one thing you can say about quilt shops: not a lot of douchebags there. ("What pretty fabrics you're getting. I wonder when these came in. Helen? When did we get these? We've had them for eight years? Fancy that. So, what are you making with these? Really? How cute! Helen! She's making patchwork scarves for Christmas gifts! Would you like a cookie, dear? HELEN! WHERE ARE THE COOKIES?")But if I want to buy fish, I have to tackle the snotty 20-something who is trying to avoid me, make him go to the tank and get the fish I want while assuring him that I do indeed know that mollies prefer hard water, and I HAVE hard water, and that's why I'm buying mollies JUST GIMME MY GODDAMN FISH.

There are a number of great places to buy fish online, and the whole douchebag problem is thus solved. Fish can easily survive an overnight trip - but it does have to be guaranteed overnight delivery and therefore you're tacking on like $25-40 more to the cost of the fish. Fabric, on the other hand, is relatively cheap to ship - even using Priority - and there's new stuff out there like this:



and this:



But I miss watching my fish while I write:




Fish-themed fabric won't cut it, nor will sewing up cute stuffed fishies. And there's no good use for fabric in a fish tank.

Perhaps I should dwell on this over some pie.