To my daughter Ava Rose,

the love of my life.

Preview audio:

storyj.mp/a8sn6rig3h7

Once upon a time........ well actually just the other day, there was a little girl called Ava.

Ava loved animals and she had a lot of pets. She had a dog and a cat, some chickens, and lots of fish. Her fish tank was a marine tank which meant it had salt water. She had corals and fish from the ocean in it.

Ava loved to sit and watch the fish dart in and out of the rocks, playing hide and seek. She also liked the way the corals swayed in the current like they were dancing. She imagined being able to zoom around thru the rocks the way the fish do. If only she could be a little mermaid for a while.

At night when the lights were out, there were so many snails, feather stars and other creatures that crawled around the tank that Ava could just watch for hours. She would play spotlight with the torch. One of her torches had a red light so that it did not startle the fish.

One day Ava was was watching her blue tang swim around when she briefly turned to look out the window. When she looked back she saw bubbles in the fish tank. They were not there before she looked away. Where did the bubble come from?

The bubbles disappeared so Ava forgot about them and started to play with her baby. A little while later something in the tank caught her eye so she glanced over and there they were again. More bubbles! Where were they coming from?

Ava decided to sit back and watch to see what was making the bubbles. She sat far enough back that the fish didn’t see her and could swim about freely but close enough to keep her eye on all the activity in the tank.

After a few minutes her favorite blue tang swam out of the cave and it happened. A mass of bubbles came out of his butt!! There was big ones and small ones, some even made a trail as he swam. Ava was shocked. Did her fish just ....., well did he really....... fart?

Surely she was imagining it. She waited and watched. It happened again. Her fish had fluffed! He made whoopee!! He had let one rip!!!

She had never seen a fish break wind before. Who knew they could?

And each time he let fluffy off the chain he would stop swimming and turn around. Was he looking to see if anyone saw him? Or was he looking for someone else to blame?

She just couldn’t believe he had cut the cheese!

How did he swim with all that gas? Why didn’t he just float to the surface?? There he goes again; he blew off right in front of her. Since when did a fish have a sphincter siren? He had become a lean mean bean machine.