Well looky here. Seems I’m in charge of taking care of a dog, some birds, and some fish while my wife and daughters are away for an extended weekend.
Prior to their leaving the other day, my two youngest daughters prepared a schedule for me to feed the animals. At first, they both tried to verbally tell me – at the same time. So I told them to write it down. While one daughter was descriptive in her requests for the dog and fish, my other daughter took the least effort approach, as in, “feed birds”. So I had her write how much and how often. So away that part of the family went.
At first, I just tossed some seed into the birdcage and squirted them with water. It caused quite a commotion in the cage to say the least. On closer inspection I realized there were some “bowls” attached to the inside of the cage for the food and water. Well, that made it much easier. Let’s see, where’s the vacuum cleaner and paper towels?
And the dog. Molly. What can I say about her? She’s a black lab retriever mix rescued from the local dog pound. I don’t have to tell her to come and get the food – she hears it being prepared. Every now and then she tries to eat at the same time as we do, but I am not a fan of that timing. Plus she sounds more like a horse eating than a dog. She’s a smart dog though – she understands me saying “git”, which means “go and find the furthest place from here without going upstairs or outside, and don’t pee or shit indoors ever”. So she does. Good dog. It is not cruel- animals don’t belong around the dinner table.
Ah, now I can rest. Oops the fish. Fortunately, they are all right side up. Reading the instructions, I notice I need to put two large pinches of food into the fish bowl downstairs every other day. And, I need to put four small pinches (one in each corner) into the fish tank upstairs, also every other day. So there you have it, my fish feeding instructions. But wait, what is a pinch and how big is it? So I Goolgle’d it and promptly got a link to some kind of food channel which was preparing fish. They were showing a two finger, a three finger, and a four finger pinch of salt, with each one having progressively more salt than the previous. So I reached four fingers to get a large pinch and I’ll have to say that that is quite a lot for three fish to eat. Then I checked the three finger pinch. Then the two finger pinch. Notta gonna do it. Then I used reason – my hands/fingers are bigger than hers (dainty and that pinkie lift – her’s, not mine, gosh, some people). So I went back to the 2 finger version and dropped that by half and called it good. Two of those and that should be good. Then for the small pinch, I halved my two finger “smidgen” amount and used that. So for all that, the fish are still swimming around. I’m too old for metric, so don’t even go there.
I surmise, there is a one finger smidgen, but not a one finger pinch. Try licking your finger and dipping it in the salt or sugar – yes, you did that as a kid I know; and if you didn’t then you probably missed out on kitchen chores or other forms of punishment.
In a day or so, this will all come to pass, a smidgen and pinch will be forgotten, and life will return to normal as it was. Normal? That’s a whole other dozen posts.