Lisa Nelson: Children & Carnival Fish

Lisa Nelson is a former screenwriter and now a feature writer. She writes about the comedic stints associated with family. Her column “One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, New Fish” was published in the Southwest News-Herald in Chicago. I rather enjoyed it despite the strange subject: carnival fishes.

No, not fishes that are put on display and do things like circus tricks…because frankly, can you train a fish to do those things and captivate an audience long enough for it to be remembered?



Her column focused on the lesson she learned from years of taking her children to carnivals. They lived to win fishes. Her fear was that her children instantly cared for these creatures, creatures she was almost certain would not survive more than 24 hours in her home.

Her details are entirely appropriate. “But my 5 and 7-year old were drawn to the win-a-fish game like cartoon characters to a pie in the windowsill…” She uses an analogy to relate her children to cartoon characters because she wants to point out the factors of the situation. The pie in the windowsill suggests childlike temptation; it implies that because it is seen in an unbelievable apparent spot, it has to be eaten. Winning a fish is not the actual temptation; the temptation lies in the physical aspect of constantly seeing others win the fishes. In this context, the pie is the fish but it is more than that.

After two of her sons each won a fish, Nelson explained the life or death situation the easiest way she could muster. “That said, I was determined to do everything in my power to keep these suckers alive.” The connotation of suckers in this sentence forebodes their ultimate death (not that it isn’t obvious from our own carnival experiences). However, these actions—explaining the fish’s situation and then fighting to keep them alive—are juxtaposed. The purpose behind the juxtaposition could lead us to one of the column’s messages. Even though she understands the realities of death, she cannot bear to teach that lesson to her children, a mother’s endless plight. She defends her children from pain even if she has to care for the fish as if it were a “liver for transplant.”

After their deaths’, the boy’s “reactions were equally heart-wrenching.” The word heart-wrenching indicates the fragile emotional state of the boys. However, because of the difference in their ages, it is implied that growth does not actually soften the experience of death. The only thing that comes with growth is acceptance. Witnessing death is inevitable—just as the boy’s watching others win fish was inevitable at the carnival. People merely move on. The pain becomes a like second-hand smoke. We inhale even though it’s bothersome. We just prepare for cancer.