my friend Will Davis is rife with riffs that I just cannot keep to myself.

I found this line in an apartment rental ad and forwarded to him:

      No Pets including fish

to which he responded - and I share with his permission:

Yeah, if you have a goldfish that smokes, you're REALLY up shit creek.

But seriously, fish can be a problem. My roommate had two guppies, and one time I came home, and there was guppyshit all over the rug and the kitchen trash was pulled out. Damn. Hundreds of dollars to clean it up.

And I've lived in beautiful places where I had to move out because the neighbor's guppies would keep you up all night.

I know, I know, it's not the guppies, it's the owner. And sometimes, people just want the security of having a guppy or two, just to scare off the burglars. But they just get out of hand. It's genetic. Guppies were originally trained by the Chinese for warfare. Some were Fifteen, twenty millimeters long. Scary. And yeah, they bred them down to a reasonable size, but like I say, it's the genetics.

And the other thing. A lot of time people who have guppies mistreat them. I've seen the ASPCA go in and pull ten, fifteen guppies out of a house. Half of me is disgusted, half of me, my heart is breaking.