n our stressful world, filled with nuclear bombs and loudmouthed people like Carrot Top, we must address the most pressing issue.
No, not the strong resemblance between our president and a monkey. Not even the fact that teletubbies scare the bejesus out of me.
Nope. Today we must address a more important issue — talking fish.
Last week in the amazingly boring town of New Square, N.Y. — a town made famous by its extreme lack of accolades or any other distinguishing features — a 20 pound carp spoke Hebrew to two men.
These two men, 57-year-old Zalmen Rosen and 30-year-old Luis Nivelo, after having hardly anything to drink, begun to see little green men wearing speedos. No, that didn’t actually happen, but the carp Nivelo was about to club in the head did begin to scream in Hebrew.
Nivelo, being the sane and calm type of person, leapt back in fear and then ran to the front of the fish shop screaming, “The fish is talking! It’s the devil! The devil is here.”
Rosen then proceeded to prove Nivelo’s insanity by following him into the back room. There, according to the “New York Times” Rosen says he heard the magical fish utter, “‘Tzaruch shemirah’ and ‘Hasof bah,’ which essentially means that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end is near.”
The fish then allegedly told Rosen to pray and study the Torah. Rosen, also being an extremely calm and sane person, tried to kill the fish with a knife the size of a machete. After all, with all the gun control laws today, the knife was the only alternative. But somehow, the fish began to flop around so much that Rosen somehow missed the large 20-pound carp and ended up cutting his own thumb.
Impressive.
All in all, many have speculated — scientifically, of course — about the possible causes of the phenomenon. Some blame aliens. Others blame the wine bottle in the corner of the shop. But most believe that it is a manifestation of God. A number of people even believe that it is God’s sign that war with Iraq is wrong.
Either way, I thought it was one of the funniest true stories that I had read in a while. Needless to say, I triple-checked the article with the “Observer,” CNN and the “New York Times.”
One thing that really stuck out to me was that Nivelo was about to club the fish before it spoke. In our advanced society, I can’t believe we haven’t found a faster, more efficient way to kill fish than with a club. I mean, come on, just let it sit around in a tub for a minute and it’ll suffocate. I’m not a fish killing expert, but from my experience with owning goldfish, I know that once they jump out of the tank, you might as well go and lift the toilet seat up, because you know the flush is coming.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the most amazing part of the article. Something else that jumped out at me was that people were willing to believe it was an omen against war with Iraq.
War with Iraq is not a good idea at all. But we all know, it’s way too late to stop it now. We are moving head strong into war because our government officials haven’t learned the meaning of one word: “chill.”Life is funny. We should learn to enjoy it. We all need time to sit back, relax, and just “chill.”
He can be reached at mhe@campustimes.org.
