This is Everyday America.

Most of this story is actually true.

Peanut was missing, and this was a terrible thing.

Peanut is a gold fish who belongs to an elementary school-aged friend of mine. Like clockwork, when my man comes home from school, Peanut is right there in his gold fish bowl, as you would expect. This is a well-mannered and trained fish.

Except…except yesterday, he wasn’t in his bowl. Wasn’t in the bathroom. Wasn’t on the stationary bike in the garage.

“PEANUT!” He wouldn’t answer.

Grandma got to looking around. Inside Peanuts’ quarters, things had been arranged in Peanut’s gold fish bowl — a castle moved or a rock re-arranged there, probably a feng shui something or other either Peanut or grandma had seen on cable television. Well, the crest was too high, and this allowed Peanut to vault out of, although quite by accident, his gold fish bowl. Thank goodness that, not a moment too soon, grandma saw Peanut lying on the floor behind the table and some Gold Fish Penthouse magazines.

With the warmth of a mom and the care of a physician, she placed Peanut gingerly back into the water. He struggled. She worked with him a while until finally he was breathing steady, and then swimming, and then acting like the Peanut we’d all come to know and love before The Incident.

They’ve changed his name to Lazarus.

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