Animals, Death

I Think My Betta Wants to Kill Me

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Dear J,

I’m sorry that I haven’t written in a long time. Life got hectic after that last post. It’s actually crazy how quickly it moved. I met some new people, went through some stuff with them, and went through a lot of stuff on my own in just these past three months. I can’t remember everything that happened right now but if any of the experiences come up later I’ll talk about them. I just wanted to write you today so that if I turned up missing or dead in the near future, you would know why.

Secret Santa Satan

It all started a couple weeks before Christmas. In our office, we play Secret Santa and if for some reason you don’t know what that is, it’s where you get assigned a person in the office to give presents to for a week but you can’t tell them you’re the one giving them presents until the week is up. I gave my person a coffee mug and some fuzzy socks. I tried to keep my identity a secret but she knew it was me.

I, on the other hand, had absolutely no idea who my Secret Santa was. On the first day, I received nothing. I sat at my desk empty-handed while everyone else enjoyed the presents their Santas had dropped off throughout the day. It was much of the same story on the second day. By now I was started to get agitated. Had my Secret Santa forgotten about me?

Special Delivery

Finally, on the third day a coworker walked up to me holding a large back with Charlie Brown and Snoopy riding a sled on the front of it. “Special delivery from Santa Claus” he said. I was so excited I tore into the bag without thinking twice. My hand gripped what felt like a small cup. I pulled it out of the bag without a second thought but what I held should not have been handled to quickly and carelessly. A splash of water covered my hand and I looked in disbelief as I realized I had just pulled a betta fish out of my bag.

He was sleek and red and very angry. I loved him. I sent a mass email to everyone in the office asking for possible names. We ended up having five names to choose from: Rocky, Rudolph, Bush (RIP George HW), Nicholas, and The Real Swim Shady.

The Real Swim Shady won by a landslide.

Will the Real Swim Shady Please Stand Up?

I don’t think Shady likes me. It seems like every time I look at him, he’s flared up and staring at me. He’s calmed down some since he’s realized that I’m the one who gives him food but I still think he hates me. I think he wants me dead. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him make a throat-slashing gesture with his fins but I can’t be 100% sure. He’s just lurking in his tank waiting for me to slip up so he can take me out. He just sits and stares at me. He’s doing it right now! I hope he can’t read what I’m typing. If he can, then I’m dead for sure. If he can, then I guess this is goodbye.

I’ll miss you.

-Jeston

Follow me: @DoHpodcast and @JestonTexeira

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Death, Letters to J, Prison

Throwback Thursday

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Dear J,

You’ll meet a lot of different people in your life that will impact you in many different ways. Some will inspire you to achieve great things and some will break you down. Some will make you wonder how you got on without them and some will make you wish you never met them. These past few days, I was confronted with two stories of two people I met at a young age. Both of these people impacted my life in some way and it’s sad to see what’s happened to them.

Rest in Peace

My dad was flipping through some sort of Aggie magazine when he started reading the names of Aggies that passed away and would be honored at Muster next year. One of the names on the list belonged to my fourth grade teacher. It was pretty shocking because I didn’t even think she was that old. I’m still not sure what she died of but it must have been some sort of disease.

I’m not going to lie and say we had some sort of Dead Poets Society “Oh Captain, my Captain” type relationship. One of the few things I remember about her is that I didn’t like her because she called my mom crazy one time. I didn’t hate her, I just didn’t like her. Another thing I remember about her (that was also mentioned in her obituary) is that she loved the Astros. I’m glad she got to see them win the World Series before she died.

One thing I am grateful to her for, though, is that when I was in her class, she recognized that I was a pretty decent writer. For one of our field trips, we went and watched the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra play at the Rudder Auditorium on the Texas A&M campus. It was probably one of the fanciest things I’d ever been to. One of the songs (or whatever you call them) they played was Peter and the Wolf. When we got back to school the next day, our class was told that there was an essay contest for all the school that attended the concert. For whatever reason, I didn’t want to participate.

On the day of the deadline, I still hadn’t written anything. When pressed by my teacher to write my essay, I wrote that I fell asleep during the concert and missed everything. She had me throw that entry away and write a real one. The essay I came up with actually won the contest! I got a check for $25, a framed copy of my essay, and my picture in the newspaper. I didn’t smile for the picture because I didn’t like my teacher then but I’m glad she pushed me to write that essay.

Locked Up

I’ve always loved sports ever since I was a little kid. I played baseball, basketball, and football growing up. Football was my shortest-lived sport, though. I only played it when I was in third grade. my dad sent me an article the other day showing me that the guy who coached me that year is going to jail for having inappropriate relations with a student. That’s crazy to me! It’s weird that had he not coached me as a third grader, our paths wouldn’t have crossed and it would’ve just been another gross teacher/student story to me only happening in a town I used to live in.

I’m not too surprised by people I know getting locked up for crazy stuff. Last year I was scrolling through the news and came across an article about a preacher getting arrested for committing indecent acts with a thirteen year old girl. I found out real quick that the sick individual who was arrested was a close friend and mentor of mine. Disgusting. I about threw up at my desk. After that, I haven’t really been surprised by too much.

-Jeston

Follow me: @DoHpodcast and @JestonTexeira

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