Babes, Pizza, and a Fist-Full of Algae ...or…
The Secret Life of an Aquarium Service Technician
By Gary M. Kafila
May/June 2005 Issue #32
I had already been working part-time for Tim Boelema scrubbing tanks in his store, when he approached me and wondered if I’d be interested in
becoming his Padawon (see Star Wars episode I). The circumstances were right (wrong?) in my full time job to make the jump, and I came on board
full-time in January, 2005 as an Aquarium Service Technician. That’s a big term for someone who takes care of other peoples’ fish tanks.
Apparently, he felt I was ready to be seen in public, and could be somewhat trusted not to wet on the customers rugs too often, as happens from time
to time in the store. Now, before you get any ideas about him rubbing my nose into the carpet and saying “Bad Techy”; it has to do with filling a tank,
just “slightly” over capacity, because you get distracted with some other mundane task that must be accomplished, such as fluffing gravel. We refer
to those moments as “scoreable events”, and Tim says that everyone that works for him (including himself) has had to learn this valuable lesson the
hard way; even people who have moved onto bigger and better things like combination newsletter editors/web masters (No...not you Jeff ).
A typical day begins at 8:30AM-ish where Tim dedicatedly arrived just minutes ahead of me and the other 1 & ½ techs who work for him, and he works out our daily schedules. Now most of the time we will have the same customers week after week, but sometimes special circumstances arise such as setting up a tank for a new customer (a very good thing), or a call about a problem in a tank; like Nemo and pals trying to escape by stopping a filter with a pebble. Sometimes a fish is discovered “sleeping” (A bad thing). Tim, to his credit quarantines his fish a few weeks before public distribution, so if there is a problem, it usually customer error. (We, the professional staff would “never” overdose any medication into a tank causing fatalities.) Regardless, of the reason, a trip to that location is made.
Let us focus on the positive side; such as taking over a competitors tank. It’s easy: have their customers get tired of looking at black and white gravel,
a goldfish, two neons, one or more red-tailed sharks, a diamond tetra, a tiger barb with half dozen other random fish and six-inch tall plants in a
twenty-inch high tank. Top this off with slabs of marble, some obsidian, lace rock, lava, a ceramic “No Fishing” sign and a bubbling treasure chest
or clam, and you have a fine looking “object d’art”. At least it had a chance at that, until the algae covered everything, because it is under filtered.
Tim’s trade secret to success in such matters is simple: common sense.
In a recent instance, our plan of attack was to strip the 75 gallon tank and start over. In this case, it was a child-care center where for two or three hours I “laboured” (the Queens spelling) while fifteen 3, 4, 5, and 6 year-olds peppered me with questions simultaneously. (These are the “Babes” referred to in my title). “Hey mister, whatcha doin’? Do you have any fish? Can I see them? I wanna see them too. What happened to the old fish? What are you doin’ now? I have a fish tank at home. I have one too. I have a cat. Do you have a cat? I used to have a dog, it died. I have a brother. Where are these fish from? Is that near Denver? I have an Uncle who lives in Denver...do you think he caught them, I’m gonna ask my Mom if she thinks so…” and on and on and on. Come to think of it, it wasn’t so different than at home with my own 8, 5, 3 and 1 week old.
I pulled out the gravel, and replaced it with a more natural looking stone, and a family of similar plants that actually reached the top of tank, and I added a pair of more powerful power heads. I must say the tank looked 1000% better (yes, I was able to quantify that number). I will admit that I did leave the deep sea diver with the bubbles coming out of his diving bell, because it was kind of kitschy and fun for the kids, and it was not a focal point, and well... I liked it. At this point no fish were added because it was basically a brand new tank, but we did receive a call from the center the next day saying how even with no fish, the parents raved on the improvement. I returned a few days later, with a half dozen Rasboras to seed the tank with bacteria. A week after that, I returned to place about a dozen Neons, and some Red Serpae tetras. The logic here is to focus on perhaps 3 to 4 larger schools of distinct, compatible fish, rather than one of everything and setting yourself up for problems later on. Eventually we will get up to perhaps a dozen or two of each of these to create a spectacular site. Yeah, crisis averted!
One last item of amusement there: just before I left, I went to use the restroom. As I was standing there, I noticed a framed quote over the toilet, and a
quick look around noticed 4 or 5 more on the wall leading to the sink. I can’t remember them all, but their gist was that it was just a series of uplifting
quotes, sometimes by famous people like President Truman, or sometimes by somebody I had never heard of. Anyway, they reminded the reader of
things like: the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, the importance of teachers in a child’s life, that a child is less likely to remember what was
taught, and more likely how you made him feel. All of this culminated in the last and most important: “Employees must wash their hands before
returning to work.”
Thursday nights and Saturday mornings is when the maintenance on the fish store’s own fish tanks are done. I work on the freshwater side and Wes is
my counterpart on the saltwater side. Tim has often said that “You will never go hungry, while you are around me.” This has turned out to be true. I
can’t count the number of times he has taken me out to lunch or bought a soda-pop, or more to the point: a pizza on Thursday evenings. In fact, it is
every Thursday evening. Recently, after getting burned out on a nearby national chain pizza, a gourmet pizza parlour (also Queen’s spelling) opened up.
One time Tim brought back some sort of pizza that had some kind of green sauce, when we asked Tim what it was, he replied that it was a “pesto sauce”,
but I still think it was a generous sprinkling of spirolina powder.
Last week, Tim asked us if we were hungry. “Duh!, I don’t think either one of us would be offended in the slightest.” The only catch was that
Tim was going to leave Wes and I unsupervised, so he could take his daughter to her softball game. Well, there was one other catch, Tim gave Wes the
money and the stipulation that Wes had to buy a pizza, other than one having pepperoni on it (Wes is very un-daring in trying something new).
THUNK! That was the sound of a cosmic tumbler falling into place, to play a joke on me. I acknowledge there was no maliciousness on Wes’s part,
but I swear in the words of the late Jerome “Curley” Howard: “I was the victim of soycumstances!” Wes went over to order the pizza and when he
returned, I asked what kind did he order? He said “Potatoe pizza (Dan Quayle’s spelling) It has a mash potatoe (also Dan Quayle spelling) sauce,
with ah...corn on it.” THUNK! (another tumbler falling into place) I thought to myself “OooKaaay...a little strange, but I’ll try it, it isn’t something
I would buy, but if someone else is paying for it, why not?”
About twenty minutes later, Wes and I were both in the process of refilling tanks, when the time arrived to pick-up the pizza. up the pizza. After
comparing respective states of tank reconstitution, I was declared closer to being done, and could go get the pizza; THUNK! Wes, meanwhile would
watch my tank to prevent a score-able event. I walked over to the pizza parlour (Queens spelling), went to the counter and said “I’m here to pick up a
pizza that’s already paid for, but I’m not sure if it’s under “Wes”, or “Tim” or (under the stores name) and pointed to my shirt logo. The man behind the
counter said “We don’t take names, what kind of pizza was it?” THUNK, BLAM! the sound of the last tumbler, and the door being flung open to play a
joke on me. “It was a potatoe (Quayle spelling) pizza,...with I think...corn. The man gave me a funny look and said “We haven’t made a potatoe
(Quayle spelling) since lunch, here, look at a menu,” I looked, and sure enough there was a potatoe (Quayle spelling) pizza, but corn was not one of the
ingredients available. I told the man I would be right back. I went back to the store, just as Wes was coming from out back, turning off water, and said
“I just remembered, you don’t really know what kind of pizza I ordered.” To which I called him a minor vulgarity. I asked: “Well, what kind is it, so I
can go get it?” Wes replied I’ll go get it, they’ll know my face.”
He leaves and I think “Great they will probably think I just tried to scam a free pizza from them. Well I guess I can never show my face in there again,
even as we speak, they are showing surveillance video to detectives who are running an APB on a swarthy looking individual closely resembling me.”
Wes returned with a Chicken BBQ pizza, but after questioning him, I found out that he did not fill in the pizza place with what had transpired. To which I
called him the same previous vulgarity, but in my best Latin: “You phallic cranium!” It was said less in anger, but with more of shaking my head attitude.
It was here that he began to snort, chortle, and guffaw over the events that took place, and proceeded to “Tee-hee-hee” like a little girl the rest of the
evening. Oh! The pandemonium.
The floor stayed dry the rest of the night, but Wes may have tinkled himself, the way he continued to giggle and carry on. Tim returned, heard the story
and also laughed at my expense. As the evening concluded, I took home the leftover pizza for my still very pregnant bride, and a bag of fish
(to which Tim gave me the “Special Gary Discount” of just 50% over retail cost). During my drive home I knew that a new piece of the store’s lore had
just occurred, and I was to be reminded of it endlessly for years to come. That’s okay, I either already have dirt on them, or am reassured that eventually
“Dirt Happens!”, and it will befall them.
The preceding story is mostly true, but the names have remained unchanged, to publicly humiliate the guilty.
The End