Before you get too concerned that I was stuck in a little fishbowl....

I wasn't. I was the size of a baseball at the least. A bit too big to be able to swim around in a little dinky desk tank. No, I was in a huge column tank. Eight feet tall, probably that much wide. It stood front and center in the store.
-Which was way bigger then it looked like from the front. That's because the stores to either side had been bought as well with the adjourning walls knocked down. Two of the storefronts held the pet store, with one of the doors blocked off. The third held the entrance to a grooming/dog training place. Also open to the rest of the store, it had a separate entrance.

Therefore. They had a big tank. And I was stuck in it.
Not by myself. No, there were other fish in the tank with me.
But I couldn't communicate with them. I tried. We just didn't speak the same language apparently. So I ended up ignoring them. Most of the fish were gold fish like me. But there were others in the tank as well. Smaller darting fish, brightly colored fish, red fish, blue fish, Dr. Seuss types of fish.
I only really noticed them when they started swarming at the top. That meant food. And if I didn't swim to the top quick enough. I wouldn't get food. That's when I cared. I had to get those fish flakes before the rest of the fish.
Oddly enough, it tasted like tacos to me. Weird for fish food. It still smells like tacos to me, even now.
I never got full though. No matter how many flakes I ate...I was always hungry. I definitely don't think I got fed enough, that's for sure.

So I swam, and ate, and swam some more in that giant tank. Exploring all the different decorations. Again. and again. And again. But, I found a benefit of being a gold fish.
Colors.
I noticed colors more then I had.
And that was beneficial if I wanted to notice something outside of the tank.
Because there were lots of colors outside of my tank as well.

This little pet store had invested a lot into its displays. With every animal they sold, they had a display of the owner's personal pets (or unwilling prisoners) to show off in the store window. With the exception of my fish tank. That was set further back to avoid getting direct sunlight and avoid algae growth.

The rest of the animals were in a long display wall. And looked like pieces from a tetras game. With cages piled on top of each other. Cats had ramps up to the top of the store. Dogs had places to romp around. Birds had places to fly around in a floor to ceiling aviary, and the reptiles had whatever they needed. All were in separate cages, with colored glass between them to prevent the cats from seeing the birds, the dogs from seeing the cats, etc.
Depending on what time of day it was, some of the colored glass would shine more brightly then others. And that would be what would catch my attention.
Whenever that happened, I would gather my focus and try to decide if any of the creatures I could see (the glass was clear front and back so customers could look in or out of the windows. Just the dividers were colored) were my crew.
I really couldn't tell.
Sometimes I thought I saw an animal do something one of them would do, but again, I couldn't be certain.

The most intricate part of this whole display tank had to be the hamster display.
Why?
The tunnels.
They ran all over the store. Different colored plastic tunnels going up and down and all around, dropping down close to the customers, going high up into the rafters. All straightened out I'm sure it could have stretched from China to California without a problem. It was huge. complex. Amazing.
You know, when I wasn't distracted by that yellow plant.

#Henry