Friday Shootout -- Aquariums (A love story)

I'm looking in the mirror and thinking that I'm one ugly sucker before I have my coffee when Bagman suddenly bursts in, already wearing swimming trunks, and shouting,  "Holy Mackerel!!  It's time for the aquarium shootout! Come on, Fishlips, Let's dive in!"

Perched on a nearby stool, Butler grunts, in his most snapperish tone, "Well, wahoo to you too."

And me?  I always sing a tune a day to add a ray of sunshine in the world, and this morning, just for the halibut, I'm singing an old Arlo Gutherie song:   "I don't want a pickerel...just want to ride on my motercyckeral."

BUTLER:  "Maybe I'm getting hard of herring, but motorcycle doesn't rhyme with pickerel."

Tired of Butler's constant carping, I argue, "Motorcycle doesn't rhyme with pickel either but, Arlo Guthrie sold lots of records with it."   But Bagman is insistant and we've run out of puns so we pile like sardines into our small environmentally friendly electric car that we've recently built out of  recycled batteries and electric eels and we're off...

"Excuse me miss but the Charleston Aquarium is that way..."

Our aquarium is not huge but it draws a crowd.

Grandpa is a facinating and entertaining tour guide

Well, at least somebody stayed awake to smile at my egocentric cleverness. 

Yes, I do seem to be more focused on myself here

Then rising, seductively, out of the depths comes a fish that finds

my header picture today to be irresistably attractive.

Kiss me, handsome!

Excited and seduced by her beauty, I dive in!

But before I take the bait...

Karen is there to stop me from my rather fishy daliance.

and reminds me that I may be a sucker for ogling that piece of tail,

and on the overall scale of things....

fooling around...

could get me stung...and I already have

a whale of a marriage.

So like a fish out of water, I wiggle back up the path to home.

And yet, I can't help but pine,  just a little,

 for the lovely-lipped carp 

 who flirted with me at the aquarium.

But I don't really think the water is bluer

on the other side of the glass.