Sanjaya Returns

Tragedy was narrowly, nay, miraculously, averted this week. Since 2 of us are allergic to all things furry pet, we have fish. B has a beta in a little beta tank in his room and A has a beta in a little beta tank in her room. (Flash, the bearded dragon, returned to the earth a month ago while we were on vacation.) You might recall that A loves her fish, and that she named him Sanjaya.
Tuesday morning as the kids were getting ready to leave the house, I noticed that Sanjaya's tank was looking sad, so I decided to change the water. His tank has a little plug at the bottom in order that you might slowly drain the nasty water and replace it without actually removing the fish. I might note here that this is a very small tank, certainly no larger than a goldfish bowl. I took the tank to the laundry room, pulled the plug, and set it in the sink. This is, I believe, the moment when Sanjaya and his draining tank left my mind completely. (Did I mention that it's early when everyone is leaving the house? 7:05, to be exact.)
A got home from school at 3:20. We were talking over the day and I was putting up clean clothes in B's room. I saw his beta, Sally, swimming happily along and asked A if she had remembered to feed Sanjaya that morning. From her room, she inquired, "Where is my fish?" This is the moment when said draining (er, drained) tank reentered my mind. In a panic, I shouted, "OH SHOOT!!!!" and sprinted through the house to the laundry room sink, where I found a completely drained tank, as you might imagine. It was, after all, a full 8.5 hours later. I came out of the laundry room, where A stood, perplexed, and said, "I killed your fish. I'm soooooo sorry!" and then began to recount the events exactly as they had happened. She cried. I cried. We hugged. Then, I don't know why unless it was the Spirit of God, I felt inclined to make sure that Sanjaya had indeed, met his untimely death. I reentered the room of certain death and turned the water faucet on over the tank. It filled, and a couple of seconds passed, but then....up from the pebbles he arose! and began swimming about with seemingly no ill effects from my attempt at fishslaughter. I don't think that his tiny little fish brain even knows that anything bad had happened. A and I began to laugh joyously and she exclaimed, with tear-streaked face, "I bet a neon would have died."