Bringing Back Hope . . . or the Death of a Goldfish

One of my son's buddies was running for high school student body president and had a very clever idea for his speech. He would bring back hope.

He brought out his fish bowl and explained that the fish was named Hope. Everyone oh'ed and ad'ed of course. Fish are so cute.

The idea here was that the potential president would swallow Hope the fish and then cough her back up. In other words, he would bring Hope back to the school.

This all went very well during the practice sessions. Hope went up and down and up and down. No problem.

Unfortunately, the politician-to-be did not try doing his short speech part while holding down Hope, so when it was time for Hope to return, Hope was not so cooperative.

Uh oh.

The only water on stage was in the fish bowl. Ugh. Fishy water. But, the candidate swallowed water and more water and gagged and tried and tried to return Hope to his school. But, he only managed to cover the stage with vomit but no Hope.

Teachers, not having the greatest senses of humor, expelled the poor guy for a week. And, he was disqualified as a candidate.

Moral: Don't bite off more than you can chew or swallow a fish if you plan to talk a while before coughing it back up.