The Will To Live. Or Die.

On an already irresponsible outing to Whole Foods the other day, me and the gals decided to pop into the pet store next door. Although math says otherwise, the impulsive 50¢ snail we bought (as a pet, mind you) seemed far worse an idea than the $9.00 block of aged cheddar we bought at the grocery store.

1. The cheese does not have a heartbeat.
2. The cheese will be eaten.
3. The snail would knowingly die, and NOT be eaten. (We don't have a filtration system on our fish bowl, which apparently is needed to keep a snail alive.)
4. I let the girls name a living thing that I knew would die.
5. I was willing to maintain the lie that Delilah (her name) was alive, even after her passing, with the help of her vacant shell. They'd never make the connection that she'd died.
6. I was also willing to let our beta fish continue living in a small bowl with a dead snail, in order to perpetuate the #5 lie.

So, just as I expected, our aggressive male beta fish was caught on several occasions head-butting poor Delilah into an underwater spin of sorts. I imagine her scared to death inside her shell for about 2 hours, finally mustering up the courage to emerge again, only to have Samson (the fish) antagonistically head butt her into another shell-spin. I figured the only good thing about this whole scenario was that hopefully Delilah would recognize her poor quality of life and be ready for her life to be cut short with some inevitable shell fungus that could have been prevented with a proper filtration system.

While Samson was sleeping a few nights ago, Delilah quietly squirms up the side and out of the bowl, like a battered wife that decides to leave her husband in the middle of the night. She didn't realize what obstacles lay ahead of her, like deadly air. Motionless and very thirsty, she probably regretted leaving her wet home in her pathetic attempts to breathe. I picture Samson waking up, looking out of the magnified bowl to see her on her back, atop the credenza, shriveled up inside her shell, "Woman, get back in this house. You are gonna regret this! I'm the best thing 'ever happened to you!"

I figured Delilah's dried demise was all part of her unfortunate fate, ever since the day we bought her. I kept meaning to hide her until I cleaned out her guts and placed the empty shell back in the bowl. But after a busy morning, then afternoon, then evening, I went to bed forgetting about her in a cup on the kitchen counter.

Terry found her AN ENTIRE DAY LATER, and without question, put her back inside the bowl.

Dera: "Terry, what's Delilah doing in here?"

Terry: "Oh yeah, did you know that you forgot to put her back in, after you cleaned the bowl?"

Dera: "She was dead."

Terry: "Naw. She just needed some water to come back to life."

Dera: "I don't think it works like that. She's not moving. It's not an episode of Sponge Bob."

Terry: "She'll be fine. It's totally like Sponge Bob."

I kid you not, Delilah was found yesterday crawling up the side of her bowl again. (Probably trying to take her life, but whatever...)

In the spirit of Biblical-inspired pet names, I think the more appropriate name for Delilah would have been Lazarus. But then that would make Terry Jesus, and I refuse to believe in a God who would have ever used an episode of Sponge Bob as a metaphor for life. Determined Delilah.