MLAARE -Bent Fish

I had a customer come into the store, carrying a fish in a bag.
Usually that means dead fish.
But there was water in the bag with the fish.

Turns out it was still alive.
But barely.
Its body had been bent in half.
Something you see in fish on occasion. The muscles contracting to one side forcefully. Bending the body to the side.

Not much you can do about that.
And I had no idea what medications would help, or if they would help at all....
The customers weren't happy, to hear that really....the best solution, sad as it is...would be to flush it.
The customers were rather devastated about that.

Tears welling up, sad that their fish was basically consigned to death.

Y_Y I felt so awful about that. Giving them bad news. It isn't the easy.

So I offered to take care of the fish for them.
Because we have other options available at work for when our fish suffer similarly.

Save them from having to do it themselves.

Its easy enough to do, only....a manager has to do it.
No big deal, I would just as the manager to do it when they had a spare moment.

>.<
But then my manager got stuck with a customer for like two hours.
And then they had to leave....

So, I went for the next option.
Placing the fish in our ISO tank. Where it could hang out until we could get to him.

Except.....
In that sick tank.
There was this cichlid....

Cichlids are aggressive....
They're known to eat other fish...

But this one was smaller.
I thought it would be alright.

But basically as soon as I put the guppy into the tank....
The Cichlid zeroed in on it.
And
SLUUURRRP

Ate him.

Kinda.
You could still see the head sticking out of the mouth.

Horrified, as this wasn't how I wanted the fish to end up.
I managed to get the Cichlid to spit the fish out.

Oh, it wasn't too pretty.
The bent fish had been bent further. :( bleeding.

I separated it.
To keep it from becoming food.
But it died only a little bit later.

Y_Y
I felt horrible about it.
That was not what I meant when I said we had other methods.
that was not a method.

Thankfully.
The customers will never know what really happened.
(Unless...you know they stumble across this blog which would be crazy. Sorry customers!)

-Sarnic Dirchi