Crash

Nightwing

Usually when I buy or am given a betta I own that betta for years. This year has been kinda rough on the bettas in my life. When Shiro and Psyche died of old age I purchased three, Ruffian, Dodge and Zimmer. Dodge refused to eat for 3 weeks or so before starving himself to death despite my best efforts. Ruffian died suddenly after I'd been gone for a conference, my best guess is that she ate something that fell in her bowl, and Zimmer eventually got sick and died a few months later. Very strange.
Then in FL for work they used bettas as the centerpieces for the final banquet. At the end of the night they had 40 or so bettas needing homes. I found someone who was driving back from FL and adopted 5 bettas and tried to find homes for the rest. Eventually the staff of the Disney Hilton adopted the last of them.

All 5 made it home, but one died on arrival, one just a day or two later, and a third lasted only about 6 weeks (he was touch and go for most of it). Two are still alive, a red fish who one of my co-workers adopted and named Horatio after Horatio Hornblower, and a deep blue fish who I had named Nightwing.

Nightwing is a very particular fish, who generally refuses to eat more than one piece of food in a "sitting" and loves to see what's going on in the world--he's also obviously very tough to have made it this far!

You're probably wondering why this post is called "Crash."
Well.

I got risers for my desk because I wanted to be able to stand while I worked. I'm an active girl, this whole "desk chair butt" thing drives me nuts when I used to have a "ballet butt"--plus...our HR dept has been sending around articles about how sitting is killing us.
Desk risers come in boxes of 4, and I'd inherited the extras from someone elses' desk. When we were done setting it up (around 4pm last Monday) we knew it wasn't as stable as it should be. It didn't rock or anything, but not all the corners of the desk (it's L shaped) were supported. My supervisor agreed we would order more risers. In the mean time, we put my keyboard and monitors and fish on my desk as usual because it was stable enough.

Fast  forward to 9:30am Tuesday. I'm on the phone with a caller and open a drawer in my desk.
CaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrraaaaSPLaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaSHatter
Shriek.
Most unprofessional moment of my phone career. Because--besides the scream--I kinda forgot about the call and cried out "my fish!" because my whole desk had just fallen toward me and dumped my computer and my fish on the floor. Glass shattered and I was soaked (as was that entire half of my office.) Miraculously, I was not hit by the desk or cut by the glass. I bent, scooped up my fish (who was writhing in shock on the floor) and ran for the staff kitchen to put him in a cup of water. (Another happy miracle, we happen to have a world class filtration system that actually makes the tap water safe for fresh water fish).

My co-workers (supervisor included) helped put my office back together (desk on the ground, sans risers this time) and my fish is actually doing fine. He has a new bowl (same day, thanks to his 3 deceased predecessors). Miraculously he wasn't speared by any of the shattered glass either, and he handled all the stress just fine. Brightly colored, demanding, feisty, eats well, and generally behaves as if he hasn't had to survive his whole world quite literally shattering around him. He's got a real superhero backstory now.

I'm finding emerald fish gravel everywhere in my office still.

Nightwing-Batman's successor

I did call the poor caller back later to let her know that I was safe. (She had actually called back after the crash to make sure I was OK)