Sally Baker works at a pet store called Periwinkle's Perfect Pets. On her overnight shift during the Thanksgiving holiday, she hears splashing coming from two fish bowls near the counter. When she looks, she sees the goldfish jumping back and forth between the bowls. Despite her attempts to keep the fish separated, they continue leaping between bowls each time she looks away. Exhausted, Sally gives up trying to contain the misbehaving fish and leaves them be until morning, when she is surprised to find them back in their proper bowl.

1. Sally Baker had been working at Periwinkle’s Perfect Pet’s, the mall pet shop with
two display aquariums out in the mall with iguanas and turtles in them, for about six
months now. She had gotten the job right after she graduated from high school, and
over all it was pretty ordinary. She cleaned cages and tanks, fed fish, puppies,
kittens, lizards, and the like, and checked people out at the register after she helped
them find the perfect pet, hamster cage, or snake snack they were looking for.
Now, it was Thanksgiving break, and her plan was to spend her break catching up on
her homework and squeezing some extra work hours in to have a little extra money
for Christmas. How much homework she was actually getting caught up on is
questionable, but she was definitely busting out the extra hours at work. Most retail
workers pick up weird hours on Black Friday, so, predictably, Sally found herself
working the overnight shift at Periwinkle’s.
Periwinkle’s was running a Perfect Pet Palooza Black Friday Special to drum up
customers. However, not to Sally’s surprise (but maybe to the surprise of the store
owner Patrick Periwinkle), not many late night shoppers were interested in
purchasing the perfect pet. Purchasing a pet is somewhat of an ordeal; carrying out
some living being in a cage with its food and accessories is not conducive to serious
Black Friday Shopping. So, Sally sat at the register flipping through a Cosmo
magazine, with nothing really to do, but wait on customers who were never to come.
Somewhere between the pages about some “Get a Booty While Sitting at Your Desk”
article and an article called, “DIY Smoky Sexy Eyes” she heard a splash. It barely
caught her attention, but she did take a break from her reading to look up.
The only area in Periwinkle’s where a splashing noise was possible was at a table
about six and a half feet from the counter where she sat. It had two plain fish bowls
with only water and gold fish in them sitting on it with miniature fake coral reefs
and sea castles, bags of colorful pebbles, and other aquarium decorations for a
customer to use to decorate their new fish bowl (“Aquatic Abode” the owner of
Periwinkle’s, Percy Periwinkle, had instructed Sally to say) strategically placed on
the table. Nothing looked particularly out of place, so Sally shrugged and returned
to her magazine.
However, she heard more splashing, and this time when she looked up, she realized
the fish were all jumping from one bowl into the other! Absolutely amazed, Sally got
up and examined the fish. The looked perfectly normal and content swimming in the
then crowded bowl. She had been instructed no more than five fish in a bowl at a
time, because that would simply be inhumane, so she grabbed the little green net
and transferred the leaping fish back to their original bowl. Then, she moped back to
the counter and zoned off looking at her magazine.
Then, she heard splashes again. Sure enough, the fish were back to their leaping.
Sally was dumbfounded. She moved them back to their correct bowl, but as soon as
her focus was away from the fiendish fish-plop, splash, plop! The gold fish had sailed

2. through the air and into one bowl, and this happened every time she turned her
head. In an attempt to prevent the flying fish from fleeing their bowl, she moved
them across the room from each other.
But, alas, it was no use. Every time she transferred the gold fish back to their correct
bowl, they flipped, flopped, and flew right back into the one bowl. She became so
distraught, that she gave up the conquest and went back to minding her own
business on her stool at the counter; she would let her boss deal with resorting the
delinquent fish in the morning. Exasperated Sally, did not get paid enough to deal
with stuff like this.
However, the next morning, when the manager arrived, the fish were in their correct
bowl—no thanks to Sally. Sally was dumbfounded. She sounded so silly when she
tried to explain last night’s happenings to her boss. Sally decided right then and
there, she was not cut out to work night shifts.