Don’t overfeed your fish

My brother keeps goldfish as pets. Why? I have never understood the attraction of keeping goldfish. They don’t do anything. They are pointless, especially since my brother is not even here to feed them or clean them out, so his pleasure from them is even more limited. What can you do with goldfish to make them interesting…?

Anthropomorphic personification does help to make it more interesting to me. For example, today they were fed not only once, but twice by me and mum. What are the terrible consequences for this heinous crime? Probably none, if we do this more often, we will have to buy more fish food. The fish might get a bit bigger or fatter. No one will die. But what if they did? What if that morning one of the fish was saying to the others, no you should swim clockwise instead of anti clockwise, so they all gave it a go (obviously, because fish have round faced clocks and watches in their advanced culture, supported by a complex language based on oral communication and have concepts such as religion and existence taught to them as eggs before being deserted by their parents). Then they were fed twice, and by unintended consequence a new religion was started and caused a major war in the fish tank, causing the death of one of the fish and a new religious sect of renegade fish. Sadly this sect, although very wrong about its precept would have an advantage of survival over all other fish, aswell as a vital flaw that would eventually wipe it out. The massive advantage is that it dared to believe something different, something radical which is beyond comprehension. The vital flaw is the pure silliness of the belief and the total lack of understanding which went into it in the first place, allowing the creature to place its entire life upon a very stupid and inconsequential hypothesis.
This cult is now a radical flight in the face of the fish religion, however its impact will stay limited because of the limited opportunities to evangelise. So don’t over feed you fish.