Some of you may know my pet Siamese Fighting fish named 'twitch' on a first name basis, and for those that don't just take my word for it... he is pretty much awesome. He studies algebra and astronomy and can colour with crayons all while he lives in a vase on my desk just to the left of my computer screen.

He is a strange coloured mongrel fish, but he has some character and some fight about him. In fact, he has so much fight, that if you have food sitting on the end of your finger, he will jump out of the water, roundhouse your hand and bite the end of your finger in his hunger driven fury. He is the Chuck Norris of the fish world.

But I believe I have been neglecting poor Twitch... so much so that recently I actually had forgotten what I had named him in the first place, and so had to invent an alternate name 'Boston', to pretend like I really cared and looked after him so the RSPCA wouldn't come and take him away...

Lately he just hasn't been himself... I don't know if that is just the colder weather and water temp that is playing havoc with him, or if he just isnt getting enough food. Either way, he has been all off balance, like a drunk on the sidewalk, swaying from side to side, doing little vomits in the gutter. Only Boston doesn't vomit, he is way too high class for that.

So I did what every good pet owner does when their animal is sick, dying or covered in some kind of coloured fungus. I hit up google, and read somewhere a suggestion by one fish owner that if the fish eats a pea, their condition often improves. I don't know why, or how, but peas are definitely magic beans to fish, so I decided to try it.

Only I had to do some pea preparation. The pea needed to be skinned, and slightly warmed, so here I am at 2am in the morning, slowly heating a grand total of one pea in a plate of water in the microwave, carefully shelling it and placing it back into the bowl to take downstairs to feed to my fish. Do you have any idea how stupid I looked cooking ONE pea in the microwave? The answer is very.

Then, just as I held the pea aloft with a pair of tweezers with surgical precision to entice Boston to eat and recover, someone msn'ed me, and I took my eyes off the pea just for a split second - my attention drawn to the flashing message of one Mr Steve West.

I looked back only to see my pea sinking like stone to the bottom of the bowl, out of reach well under the rocks. I spent 5 minutes carefully selecting, shelling and heating this pea, and then West distracts me and sends my pea to the bottom of the tank. Not even my randomly decorated chinese chopsticks that were given to me as a present by one Pam Lee could save that pea. And seriously as an aside, who gives a 20 something year old white guy painted chopsticks for his birthday?

Anyways, Mr Steven West, let me lay it out for you like this. Because my pea is now -thanks to your untimely distraction- well under the pebbles in my fish vase, and as a result Boston cannot get any of the required nutrients from aformentioned medicinal pea, I will hold you personally responsible for any harm that may come your his way from your irresponsible distraction, and may hold you liable for any funeral costs that arise from me flushing the remains of Boston down to the 'fish heaven in the toilet bowl'.

You have been warned.