I was either 8 or 9 when this happened to me. I remember it as if it were yesterday....
Saturday morning, my mother and I were up doing our various chores. For the most part, my chore was to clean my room. However, on this day we also needed to clean out the fish tank. Being a kid, my mom let me pick all of the fish we had with the exception of 2 fish. My mom had seen these fish called "Hatchett Fish". They were funny looking. They sort of look like a cartoon whale drawn upside down and they are silver. I didn't think they were pretty at all and did not understand why my mom liked them so much. 1 Hatchett fish died so we were left with one.
Cleaning out the tank, we caught all the fish and put in a bowl and went about emptying the water and cleaning the rocks and the nic nac tank decorations. After refilling the tank and letting the water adjust to room temp, it was time to put the fish back in the tank. We put the fish back in and my mom and I sat in front of the tank to watch the fish in all the clean. At some point my mom realized the Hatchett fish was missing. She was frantic! We looked all over the place him/her. My mom knew I did not like the Hatchett fish and accused me of killing it!!! How sick is that!?? Even at the young age I was, I was speechless, I could not believe that she would think I was capable of doing something so evil, let alone accuse me of it! It's something that I've never forgotten and is still painfull to this day. It was later that we found out that these Hatchett fish are famous for jumping out of the water. When we put the fish in the bowl, we did not cover the top and we think he/she just jumped out. We never found him/her. My mom did apologize to me for accusing me of killing her fish but the pain of that day is still with me. It was and is completely unforgivable.
