Column: Goldfish seem to have a predisposition for jumping out of bowls

Our beta fish took a dive the other day.

Literally.

Employing my best Hercule Poirot gumshoe skills, honed from years of exploring the manicured lines of Agatha Christie, I’ve pieced together a scenario.

Conclusion: The aforementioned beta jumped from his bowl — committing aquatic hara-kiri.

My 4-year-old (at the time) grandson, Judah, won the beta in July of 2017 at the Orange County Fair and named him Nacho (sorry, I have no logical explanation).

Since my wife, Hedy, and I live two blocks from the fairgrounds, Judah toted him to our house and left him. We, naturally, assumed custody and coddled him (metaphorically speaking, of course) for just under a year.

Judah never really took an interest in Nacho after that. By default, he became our step-fish.

Having lived as close to the fair as we do for more than 40 years, you couldn’t possibly imagine the number of goldfish our four children brought home in baggies as trophies for tossing innumerable rubber rings at innumerable milk bottles.

Dozens.

Want to hazard a guess as to how many didn’t survive their first night in our house and ended up motionless the next morning on our bathroom floor?

Dozens.

Spoiler alert: Goldfish seem to have a predisposition for jumping out of bowls.

“Oh, Goldy’s not feeling well, he’s taking a nap,” I usually assured a distraught child the following morning. “Now, you get ready for church and Daddy will help Goldie reach his ocean paradise in a single flush.”

I realize beta fish and goldfish are not of the same species, but bear with me here.

By the way, what do I imagine happens when Goldies are flushed from a Carnett family commode? I envision a breathtaking thrill ride through a labyrinth of underground Mesa Water District pipes and tunnels (much like Victor Hugo’s sewers of Paris) with final disposal somewhere between Newport’s Wedge and the River Jetty. (Am I even close?)

Goldfish possess a significant genetic flaw. They’ve been programmed by Mother Nature to launch themselves like salmon. They leap from comfortable confines – a former peanut butter or mayonnaise jar, in our case — onto the unforgiving surface of a ceramic floor.

I still don’t think Nacho had that gene, but I’m convinced he decided to go for the gusto, maybe out of boredom, maybe desperation.

And, OK, so his bowl wasn’t a 14K gold-plated model capable of containing the volume of an Olympic-sized pool. He had a cozy one-gallon abode in a sunny alcove. And, no, he didn’t leave a mini-noose in the corner of his bowl (I suppose bowls don’t have corners).

If anything, Hedy pampered him.

It appears Nacho made the decision on his own. And I further submit it was impulsive. A bold but foolish move. Who knows what a fish thinks, but I believe he thought he could survive his gambit.

Hedy discovered him hours after the deed, as she was about to distribute fishy flakes in his bowl. I happened to be sitting on the couch, reading.

“Oh my gosh!” shouted Hedy. “Where’s Nacho? He isn’t in his bowl.”

What?

“He’s gotta be,” I mumbled absentmindedly from my perch (is that an insensitive fish reference?) on the couch. “Where else could he go?”

The floor? I hadn’t thought of that in years.

Voila! There he was. Motionless on the floor.

Poor devil.

I’ve learned a few things about beta over the last 11 months. They are a species — also known as the Siamese fighting fish — of the gourami family and are native to the Mekong basin of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Betas are territorial and aggressive. Males eat other males. Nacho knew our house rules: No messing with the Big Guy.

Still, Nacho wasn’t averse to exchanging an occasional nasty glance. And there were several occasions when — I swear — he spit at me.

He definitely favored Hedy.

But now he’s gone. We’ve cleaned his bowl for the last time and put it away in a cupboard.

Nacho’s former corner of the living room still lights up with warm afternoon sunshine. But he’s not there.

OK, I miss him.

The O.C. Fair is only a month away.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.