An Open Letter from a Goldfish

Dear Humans:

Yes, we goldfish are addressing all of you.

Why?

Because we're fed up.

No. You didn't feed us too much. 

I meant fed up metaphorically. Dimwit.

We are so sick and tired of hearing how "so and so has the attention span of a goldfish."

Who are you, mere humans, to talk to us about attention spans?

You're the ones who can't watch television without flipping through two other screens at the same time. 

Talk about crappy attention spans.

Did you ever take a moment to think that maybe our attention spans appear short because life in a bowl ain't exactly riveting?

You try holding a meaningful conversation with a plastic scuba-diver blowing bubbles, endlessly blowing bubbles. Fuckwad. Those plastic scuba divers ain't exactly Noel Coward.

The plastic faux seaweed and the multi-colored stones ain't much better. It's not the Library of Congress down here in my freaking Petco one-gallon fishtank.

You try it.

You see if your mind wanders.

Before you blurt out some un-scientific proclamation about the relative brevity of a piscine attention span, let me ask you this, Mr. Big Shot Biped:
 
Have you given us anything worthwhile to pay attention to? I got news for you. We goldfish don't like being shouted at in commercials, being hit over our dorsals with copy points and third-rate jokes any better than hamsters do. And you know what they say about hamsters.

Not. Too. Bright.

I mean, what do they pay attention to? Running around a wheel. You'll find no atheists in foxholes and no Albert Schweitzers in hamster cages.

But the point is the same.

Give us goldfish something funny.

Something about us.

Something real.

Something interesting.

You'll see there's nothing wrong with our attention spans.

And there's plenty wrong with your "creative." And your cliches.

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