I Believe in Mr. Fish

Let me spin you a yarn. I'm sure it won't make a lot of sense, but I feel it's important anyway. I used to work at a coffee shop, and everyone else who worked there was about as equally bizarre as me. It was a lot of fun, and sometimes I really miss it, but only because of the weird shit we would all come up with during the really slow periods during the day.

Well, during one such slow period, we were all standing around in the kitchen while the legendary Tina Schwina was making the schedule. She was in a weird mood (not very rare after she had been working for a long time) and was making weird comments as she drew lines across a piece of scrape paper. Suddenly, the line she was drawing veered up slightly. She stopped, looked up, and said with a totally straight face, "You've almost gone too far, Mr. Fish." Just. Like. That. Then she went back to drawing as if she hadn't just blown my mind.

I couldn't handle the Mr. Fish. What? Mr. Fish? Who was Mr. Fish? I told Olivia, a fellow coworker, and Mr. Fish blossomed from odd anecdote to pure obsession. We worked Mr. Fish into every situation possible; when something went wrong, it was Mr. Fish. When something didn't make sense, it was Mr. Fish. When something good, bad, or just weird happened, it was Mr. Fish. And all the while we had no idea who this Mr. Fish was, or how Tina became aware of him.

So, we speculated. Was it a character in a child's book, like Mr. Toad from the Wind and the Willows? Was it a weird creature of her own design? We imagined him looking kind of like a real fish, but with a handlebar moustache because he would have to be a gentleman fish (he was called Mr. Fish, after all.) Finally, Olivia confronted Tina about Mr. Fish, and Tina had no clue where it came from. She couldn't remember, and we thought we would never know the origins of this magnificent fish.

Then, one day, Tina had some exciting news. Her husband had remembered, but she had forgotten what movie Mr. Fish was from. So, she called him that minute and asked. The answer was more than I could handle. Mr. Fish was originally uttered by Spencer Tracy in the 1940's film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Even now, as I think about it, it makes me laugh.

And that is the tale of Mr. Fish.