Word of the Day: Irresponsible
Thurman took just one more second to pay his final respects to the gold fish now bobbing in the toilet. He truly regretted naming it. With a roar, Daniel Goldstein was flushed into the sewer system, then several days later spat into a nearby lake.
What a stupid carnival gift. Thurman knew it was a cheap way to make people think they had actually won something, but considering how many times he paid for chances to win the damn thing, it wasn’t even that cheap. He probably would’ve stopped trying if he hadn’t been so damn drunk, and though it goes without saying, if he hadn’t been drinking, he also wouldn’t have had to try so many damn times to win the stupid fish in the first place.
It was a coincidence that the arresting officer that night happened to have “Gold” in his name. Thurman tried furiously to explain to Lieutenant Goldstein that his pet wouldn’t make it through the night if he was hauled off to jail without proper fish accommodations, but of course, Thurman’s rants fell on deaf ears. To Lt. Goldstein, Thurman’s was just another rambling voice smothered in the din of all the other testimonies spewing from all the other idiots who’d swerved their way home from the county fair.
The cops could have taken Daniel Goldstein out his bag and put him in a bowl while Thurman slept off his buzz in the drunk tank. That’s the least they could have done. Instead, like a cruel joke, they handed back a dead Daniel Goldstein with the same bureaucratic airs shrouding the return of Thurman’s lighter, wallet, phone, iPod, and diary.
Now Thurman was without pet, without money, and for the next 18 months, without driver’s license. As Daniel Goldstein circled the bowl, Thurman started to cry. Not to mourn his dead fish, but because he felt ashamed at what he’d done, and for the first time in his life, someone other than his parents, the local police, had been the ones to reprimand him.
Then his best friend Barry called, ecstatic with the news that Lynyrd Skynyrd was coming to town.
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