Elvis Is Alive

Wal*mart has a bad reputation, but for poor folk like me, it's almost like church--the place I go at least once a week. 

I had such a visit this past week. When I realized how unproductive eating out had been to my concept of "saving money", and how much lower my funds would only get by keeping that up, I made the all-too-necessary pit stop at Wolly World. 

11 p.m. 

The only good and decent time to shop.

Have you ever walked down the pet isle and noticed these ridiculously miniature Tupperware-like containers? They are the ones filled with what seems to be 1/8 of water from a water bottle with a small, floating, scaly amphibian inside? Well, remember, beggars can't be choosers so Walmart fish are extra ghetto, for beggars like me. The water of these amphibious beta fish were a deep opaque and my heart frowned at the sight of them. All 8 of them. I am a sucker for living things, humans especially.

As I started to give each of these poorly treated beta fish some attention for perhaps the first time in their lives thinking, "Well, they don't seem like they will last long. I wonder if I will be the first and last to even give them a glance," I noticed an especially sickly looking fish...he was quite the underdog. Did I mention I am also a sucker for underdogs? 

I am.

Way in the back of the row on the back of shelf I found a crimson red beta fish, it's fins torn and broken, the water he existed in being brown, and I wondered if I could recognize a dead fish when I saw one. It's gills contracted and he moved. That was when I decided to become a fish owner. I couldn't leave seeing him exist in the muck of a cheap container and make it this far to die like that.

Picking out a big home for him, rocks, and a moon rock for him to "live" in, I shuffled my all-star pet into my cart to finish my grocery shopping--kinda what I went there for in the first place. To wrap up my sporadic beginning of an outing by buying a not on my list beta fish, I decided to stop by the lesser looked at cd's, in honor of my Mom, who is notorious for checking out old music, buying them, and listening to them...on repeat.

I am now my Mother, in case you wanted to know.

Elvis Presley, Love Me Tender, being on the list of songs on the cd in hand sold me. I need some self control. Hand-carrying my fish to my car, after putting groceries away, I inserted my classic disc, adjusted my fish in my right hand and drove away steering the wheel in my left. Pondering names, it became obvious. This fish was a fighter. He made it to the shelves of Walmart from some far off land and didn't die in the process. He's basically Nemo and needs a big, King-like name.

So, isn't it obvious?

Elvis lives.