The last time I saw Charlie, his little goldfish body was swirling around the toilet bowl as I flushed him down the drain, or at least I thought it was the last - I would soon find out differently. Of course, I knew I wasn't supposed to flush a fish, so I guess I ended up getting what was coming to me.

Everyone tells you that flushing into the sewers is an ignoble way for a fish to go, but he was pretty much dead already, and I figured that the chlorinated water would finish him off. How was I supposed to know that the neighbor next door in my apartment complex was a drug dealer who was trying to get rid of his stash before the Feds broke down his door?

And how was I to know that there were some home-grown terrorists in the same complex who had explosives to get rid of in the same way and for the same reason? Oh, and did I mention that there was a tad bit of radioactive isotopes that had slipped into a technician's pocket when she left her research lab, and that she thought would probably be okay to flush?

Hmmm, besides needing to change my neighborhood, I had another problem - Charlie didn't die - and Charlie was very unhappy.

The next morning, I got up to do my morning rituals in the "happy room", when I heard a terrible gurgling noise coming from inside my toilet bowl. Curiosity circumventing caution, I walked over and gazed down. I couldn't see anything, so I knelt on my knees in the inebriated position and looked closer. It was then, in absolute surprise, and with, I'll admit, a healthy dose of terror, that I found out what happens when you mix goldfish, methamphetamine, TNT, and tritiated water.

"Hey, b----," a rather raucous and angry orange face screamed, and he did say , 'b' and not the 'other' word since he had been my son's pet and my son had taught him to be polite. "What the heck? Do you have any idea what it smells like down here?"

"I could guess," I responded, leaping to my feet and taking a few steps backwards, "although I can't speak from personal experience."

"Well I can," he roared in a most ungoldfish-like way, "and I'm not the only creature down here, either. There's a whole lake full of flushed pets. Can't you inconsiderate and self-centered humans think of a better way to send your loyal servants off to the next world?"

"I'm pretty sure we can," I began, but was cut off as he leapt from the bowl and landed upright on his tail right in front of me.

"Shouldn't you stay in the water?" I offered, grasping at straws.

"It seems I don't need it anymore thanks to all the additives I've ingested," he responded, grabbing me by my bathrobe and pinning me against the wall. In the next moment, he lifted his fishbowl off of the bathroom sink where I had left it, and fitted it over my head - who knew it was the right size?

I tried to protest and explain my position, but he just waved a dismissive golden fin my direction and stalked out the front door.

"Where are you going?" I called out through my glass enclosure.

"I'm running for congress," he bubbled back. "Someone with brains needs to make some changes."