CheetahFish :Tales from the south

Playing in the pool, my 8 yr old daughter decided she was a fish. “ what kind of fish are you?” I asked her.

“I’m a Cheetahfish”
A what? There’s no cheetah fish !

Her reply was full of reason, and ever hard to argue.
“ I am a cheetah fish. I am related to the catfish. I am from…. Antadonesia, (complete with spelling) that’s in… um.. Africa or Australia I think. I am the fastest fish in the water, and have great big teeth to eat whatever I want. “

Ok honey. You got it… like I said, she had a name, an animal category, a homeland location, and her survival skills all lined up and ready. How to argue with such a sufficient species ??

When we went out for dinner, we took the kids to a Chinese buffet. This buffet had foods I have never seen in any buffet style Chinese restaurant. We all found it great fun when my Father, known to my kids as “pappy” returned to the table with a bowl of Wasabi.

For those of you who don’t know, wasabi is a flaming spicy hot sauce. It is also a very unappealing shade of green.

My children’s experience with wasabi is humorous- they heard it on a tv reality show- the contestants had to survive a Japanese game show- which included the contestants being forced to eat 2 huge sushi rolls, stuffed with wasabi. If they couldn’t eat it in a specific time- they had to start over. These poor folks were 4 shades of flaming purple. The kids’ amusement came from the Japanese game show crowd. “EAT THE WAAAASAAAABIIII” my kids found dozens of ways to have fun with the word “wasabi”.

So, when Pappy comes to the table with said wasabi, my kids are overly curious. ( and also giving the grandparents every version of their love for the spoken word itself) I ask them to try it. Noooo way. They both were able to smell the wasabi- but weren’t brave enough to try it. ( my father loves hot n spicy- my daughter does as well, and can generally keep up with Pappy, but when she saw Pappy’s head turning red, she refused quickly.)

That evening it was announced by daughter, back in the pool expanding the Cheetah fish’s biology facts, that the Cheetahfish eats wasabi meatballs. When asked HOW the cheetah fish would find these wasabi meatballs in the water, she said, they grow in the grasses. When you pull up the sea grass by the roots, the wasabi meatballs are waaay at the bottom. Ok.

So then how exactly would a cheetah fish go about pulling these sea grass roots?

With its claws of course. It has longer fins with claws, just so it can dig up its favorite snack.

Really now, I had to appreciate the fact she was able to pull these replies out of her head at the speed of light, or perhaps it would be better to call it “faster than the speed of imagination” ?