Something Fishy

Did you know that you can bring a live fish on a plane? I had read about it, but I wasn't sure how it would go down. Because I was planning on being gone for a while, Jen wanted to keep Buck with her at home rather than me bringing him with me. I understand that. It compounds my loneliness when Jen is away and the dog isn't there. The house seems so very empty. With Jen keeping Buck I decided it would be worth it trying to get my Betta fish, named W.B. Fish, to Florida. I still had a few ghost shrimp living with W.B. that I would bring as well.

I had bought a small gallon and a half aquarium to carry my fishy friends. It isn't watertight having some slots on top to allow for air. In case TSA or the Southwest crew insisted on everything being watertight, I brought a gallon ziplock bag as well. I also came prepared with chocolate bars in order to bribe the flight attendants. "Is that a fish you are carrying in there?!" "Would you like a chocolate bar, ma'am?" I had also ordered an aquarium on Amazon to be waiting at the condo when we arrived.

Before the fish became an issue, though, I had to deal with getting through TSA without a different sort of incident. As I stuffed everything I had on my person into my carryon bag -- phone, wallet, loose change, a tin foil-wrapped cucumber -- I must have hit the emergency call button on my phone. Suddenly a loud alarm began wailing from my bag as if a nuclear reactor were melting down. Luckily the hum of the hall where security is at DIA was so loud that only myself and the kid standing next to me heard it. His eyes got like saucers as I hurriedly reached into my bag to shut it off before the phone, or someone else, dialed the local authorities. An inauspicious start to the trip.

(Actually the inauspicious start began when the flight I was trying to fly standby on went from fourteen seats available to none overnight. The rest of the flights that day also had either one or no seats available. Being all packed on already on our way to the airport, I bought what the site showed to be the last ticket on the last flight out on Saturday.)

With my phone silenced and stowed away, I got to the xray machine and held up the reusable shopping bag that held the little aquarium. "I have a fish in here!" I proclaimed. The TSA agent at the metal detector gave me a look as if this was not at all usual nor was it completely unheard of. "Hey, he's got a fish here," he said to the guy running the x-ray scanner. "Just put it through."

Could a betta survive a little zap of x-rays? Could the little ghost shrimp? I guessed we were going to find out. Before that could happen, though, an agent with a little better head on his shoulders came over. "No, no, no. He just has to show me the fish." On the other side of the scanners, I was handed the bag. Could I take the aquarium out so we could make sure the fish is alive. So I pulled it out and W.B. was still swimming around. "One agent leaned over to his more experienced counterpart. "What if the fish hadn't been so... fortunate." "Well, then he couldn't bring it through." "Nor would I want to," I added.

There was a bit of water leaking from the bag due to some sloshing that had happened, so I made my escape quickly. I had a long wait at the gate since I had shown up for the earlier flight. When we finally got lined up in Southwest's cattle call line, I heard over the P.A., "Would standby passenger Benjamin Rice please come to the podium if you are in the gate area." Aw geeze. I hadn't told anyone that I had bought a ticket and should be taken off the standby list. "I have your ticket here. All I need is your i.d." My name had rolled over onto the standby list for this later flight after a ticket was not issued for the earlier flight. I had to sheepishly admit that I had already paid for a ticket since I didn't think I would make it on standby. Live and learn.

I gave the chocolate bars to the flight attendant as I boarded. As I moved down the aisle, she came on the PA to announce that the guy "in the cool hat" had brought chocolate. I had on a dark straw hat that is of the type that can really only be worn by the beach that I was taking down. No one noticed my friend swimming away inside his grocery bag.

"Oh, chocolate! You know how it goes then. Everything on us," said the flight attendant standing in the exit row. I gave her a grin and took a spot in a window seat. The bribery concept has made its rounds on TikTok now so is no longer a secret for getting free drinks on a flight. I was looking forward now to turning down those drinks. Hopefully they wouldn't find out the real reason that I wanted to win favor was so I wouldn't get a hard time carrying on live aquatic creatures. I had made sure that I could find even on Southwest's website their policy on bringing fish aboard, though.

The flight was really uneventful other than a bit of concern with the tilt of the grocery bag on take-off and landing. When I ordered my coffee, the flight attendant asked if I didn't want anything else with it, and when she came around with snacks I was offered extra but turned it down. Of course I really am appreciative of the fact that these women and men are working jobs where they have to be away from family, pets, and home for days at a time.

Back on the ground in Orlando, I checked on W.B. and friends all of which seemed to have made it without too much problem, though they had lost about a third of the water in the process. We got into the condo late that night, all a bit weary. The box with the aquarium was waiting for us as predicted. The water in the little travelling aquarium was looking cloudy, so I added some new, conditioned water to top things off before bed.

I sadly must report that in the morning, the shrimp had not made it through the night. I suspect that the cloudiness of the water came from the new gravel in the carrier. I had rinsed it before putting it in, but perhaps not well enough. Of course there was the stress of the entire ordeal and the temperature in the condo was below ideal, but still relatively warm. No autopsy was done, however, so we are left to speculate. W.B. did come through swimmingly. My top priority for Sunday then was to get the aquarium set up, though I did take the immediate step of fishing out his deceased crustacean friends, so he wouldn't be subject to that any longer.