Tilapia
(Baonghean.vn) - I've played the fishing game a few times. Sometimes I was the fish, sometimes I played the fisherman. Once, I broke up with my boyfriend and absolutely refused to answer his messages or calls trying to win me back. I don't know what he was thinking, but he sent me this message: "I was planning to buy you the shoes you liked, but before I could, you broke up with me."
Tilapia are indeed omnivorous. We kids used to break off small bamboo branches, tie fishing line to them, and use a blunt hook as bait. All we needed was to dig up an earthworm from the garden, break it into tiny pieces, and hook them onto the bait. And the tilapia would devour them voraciously – sometimes a dozen, sometimes a whole bucketful. The first time we fried them, the whole family praised how delicious they were. But then, for a whole week, we saw a plate of tilapia on the dinner table every day. My mother got fed up and told us to give the fish to the neighbors. It's funny, though; we thought those fish would learn their lesson after being "on the plate" for a few days and wouldn't bite the bait anymore. But the tilapia's omnivorous nature is no joke. We fished them every day, and they just wouldn't learn their lesson.
Later, my family got dogs. The dogs often went to the garden to relieve themselves, but sometimes they would pee in the middle of the yard. My mother sent me to clean up their messes, but I was too lazy, so I just dumped the mess into the pond. The tilapia swooped in and devoured it, so from then on, every time I had to clean up the dogs' mess, I put all my faith in the fish. And from then on, I absolutely refused to eat the fish from our pond, even though my mother, whenever we had guests and she was too lazy to go to the market, would send me out to catch some fish to fry until crispy. Everyone who ate it praised how fatty and delicious the fish was. I remained silent. And I have to admit, the fish really was fatty.
Growing up, I sometimes played the fishing game. Sometimes I was the fish, sometimes I was the fisherman. Once, I broke up with my boyfriend and absolutely refused to reply to his messages or calls trying to win me back. I don't know what he was thinking, but he texted me: "I was planning to buy you the shoes you like, but you broke up with me before I could." I almost died laughing, but I still didn't reply. The next day he texted again: "Shoes and a bag too, honey." I told my friends about this, and they said it's an old trick guys use to win back girlfriends when they have no other reason to cling to them. But my friend encountered a guy who was even more stingy, always repeating, "I bought you the box of cookies you like." We told each other, if one box of cookies isn't enough, he has to "upgrade" to two, three, four boxes. People aren't tilapia that you can just gobble up anything!
The pond at our house still raises tilapia. Whenever I visit home, my mother still asks me to go fishing for them to eat. Of course, I flatly refuse. Just because something is fat doesn't mean it's delicious, and even if it is, it's not necessarily edible.
