What began as a cool prize won 3 years ago at the county fair has ended in bloodshed this past Sunday as Little Woowoo was violently bludgeoned to death in self defense by his once proud owner.
"Yeah, I was like 7 years old when I won that fish," 10 year old Justin Bates explained holding up a 3 inch tooth that belonged to the beast. "But it was much smaller back then," he explained.
Bates recalled that he had gone to the fair with his parents 3 years ago, just as the family does every year, but that year was different: he actually won something.
"I was pitching ping pong balls at fish bowls," Justin explained, "when one of the balls landed into one of the bowls. But mom wouldn't let me choose a switch blade knife for my prize, so I settled on a fish instead."
Over the years the family bought larger and larger fish tanks in order to accommodate the growing fish. "We didn't know what kind of fish it was," Justin explained, "we just thought it was some kind of albino goldfish or something."
But an albino goldfish it was not. In fact, no one seems to know to what species the fish belonged. Whatever it was, Justin guesstimates that Little Woowoo must have eaten approximately 25 different varieties of fish, including a frog and a turtle, that the family placed into the tank in order to provide the fish company through the years.
"Yeah, we spent a lot of money trying give that fish some friends," Justin explained, "but after a while we'd come back and find more fish missing again." The family finally figured it out: Woowoo was devouring everything in the tank -- including the plastic vegetation.
Despite these setbacks, the family chose to stick with Little Woowoo. And why not, it was the only fish they had left. But things were not to improve. In fact, things worsened significantly.
As Justin's father relates it, the family was engaged in a routine tank cleaning for Little Woowoo last Sunday (recently nicknamed Moby due to its size). They had admittedly neglected to clean the tank for sometime due to the tank's large size. Anyhow, as Justin attempted to fish Moby out of the tank with a net that was too small for the job, the once routine task turned into a day of terror.
"The little shit grabbed hold of my thumb and wouldn't let go!" Justin blurted out before realizing what he'd just said in front of his parents. "Well, it did!" he exclaimed.
His thumb, swollen triple its original size and wrapped in gauze, serves as a reminder of the horror that must have permeated the Bates household that lazy Sunday afternoon mere days earlier.
"His first reaction was to fling the thing off," Justin's mother explained, "but that didn't work and only served to worsen the situation because it clamped down even harder after that."
According to mom, after panicking, screaming bloody murder, and running around the house a few times with Moby firmly attached to his thumb, the kid finally bludgeoned the offending fish to death with the wooden side of a wire brush out by the grill.
"It took awhile, but I beat it to death," Justin boasted while still proudly brandishing that 3 inch tooth as a trophy of sorts. "But we still couldn't remove it from my thumb, so dad cut it off except for the head. Then we went to the emergency room and the doctor surgically removed the rest," he said summing up the events of that day.
He paused for moment and then added, "But it's ok, I wasn't scared or anything. It was just something that happened."
