Swimming With The Fish Can Sometimes Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Another disclaimer:  I will only refer to Derek's children as the heir (son) and the ballerina (daughter).  Their anonymity is most important to me.


The day after meeting Derek's son, we had made another afternoon date to take him to a local game room so I could further try and bond with him and show him that I was actually fun.  While playing a very competitive game of ski-ball, his son began to tell me a story of his dad's aquarium.  While listening to the story, I thought it was partially made up from an 8 year old imagination.  After dropping his son off at his mothers house, I told Derek of the crazy story his son had told me.


Funny enough, his son was telling the truth.  Derek had always wanted one of the most world's coveted home aquariums.  He had flown to Fiji with his cousins, privately of course, to dive and hand pick the coral and fish he wanted.  He hired engineers from 3 different countries to build a 400,000 gallon or something of that size, half the room of the basement, aquarium.  It was a project and a half, not to mention an enormous fortune.  Once the aquarium had been built, the fish and coral flown in, it was what Derek declared a personal masterpiece.  After only having it for a few short weeks, he went down to enjoy a glass of wine and sit in front of it.  The floor was soaking wet and the aquarium had leaked and was nearly empty.  Immediately he reached out to everyone to come help save his fish and coral, but most did not survive.


As if that wasn't enough, Derek doesn't take defeat well at all.  So he hired new engineers and had the aquarium rebuilt, re mastered and was convinced this was leak proof.  Again he dove to pick his fish and coral and was quite happy at the end result.  But again, while heading down to feed the fish, he realized the glass had bowed and was leaking yet again.  This time he could rescue most of it and ended up donating the fish and coral to the local Shedd aquarium.  I am not sure what made him not decide to try a third time, whether it be the finances behind it, the constant replacement of new carpeting, or realizing that it just wasn't possible to the scale he would be satisfied.


I found this story hilarious, riveting, quite stubborn, however so passionate about something he had always dreamed of and didn't give up on.  It hands down was one of the craziest stories I had ever heard and it made me wonder about Derek and his thinking... "Was it ever enough?".  And five years later I can simply answer with one word.  "No".


*Oriana