The original "design flaw in goldifsh" story

As told on E2 before it got so damn annoying....

So... I'm sitting around last night, fiddling with the computer and getting ready to go outside and ride in the tour de garage, when my phone rings. Now, normally this would not be a big deal, because (as those of you who know me know) I NEVER answer my phone. Something said I should answer this one though, so I did. It was my girlfriend. She was distraught. Apparently, there had been an aquarium cleaning "incident", which involved a high degree of grossness. Being male, it was incumbent upon me to deal with said grossness. I arrived to survey the damage.

At first blush, everything was normal. However upon closer inspection and with some emotional description, I learned that something was indeed horribly wrong. In the acrylic 55 gallon tank was a black goldfish, which had been entrusted to our care by a friend some years ago. The fish was swimming pretty much like it always does, and looked fairly normal, with one exception.

THE DAMN THING HAD NO EYES!!!!

The eyes, as it turns out, were in a bucket of old water, floating peacefully near the top. Apparently, here is what happened:

Water is changed in our aquaria by siphoning the old water out into buckets. The siphon consists of a cylinder roughly the size of a tennis ball can attached to a length of plastic hose. Occasionally, smaller fish (loaches, and others) will get sucked into the cylinder and through the hose. No biggie, they wind up in the bucket and are promptly returned to the tank. The goldfish, however, was slightly larger. It made it into the cylinder, but was too large to enter the hose. The suction was not strong enough to do any harm to the fish, with the exception of removing it's f**king eyes! After quickly removing the fish from the trap, my girlfriend had at first thought that everything was OK. Until she glanced into the drainage bucket, and saw the eyes. At this point, she called the cavalry (me). While the fish appeared to be capable of functioning fairly normally, I couldn't bring myself to force it to live blindly and with the distinct probability of painful infection setting in.

So, our friend the black goldfish was euthanized, and the eyes were dealt with as all spare fish eyes should be. Frozen in an ice cube to be served as a practical joke.

After much discussion, she and I agreed that while she should have perhaps been a bit more attentive whilst draining the water, the true fault lies with the designer of goldfish (insert your favorite deity here), who should have stuck the eyes in there a little better in the first place.