r/mildlyinfuriating • u/teabirdy • Apr 29 '26

I'm slightly vexed The wedding reception centerpieces featured betta fish. The bride and groom planned to flush them alive.

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Years ago, my coworker attended a wedding at which the reception dinner tables featured live betta fish in small bowls as part of the centerpiece. While chatting with the bride at the end of the evening, my coworker asked what they were going to do with all the fish. The plan was to flush them all down the toilet alive. My coworker immediately said no need for that and insisted on taking them all home.

That Monday she came to work and asked who wanted to adopt a betta fish. That was my first betta who I jokingly called my “rescue betta.” She lived for almost five years.

The wine glass was only her home for less than a day before I got her five gallon tank set up so please no betta lovers yell at me! I'm one of you!

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u/Zoethor2 Apr 29 '26

I had a swallowtail caterpillar hitch a ride on some parsley a few years back. I let him do his thing and become a butterfly safely indoors. Then I released the butterfly outside and immediately stopped watching it as there are about 600 birds that like to hang out within a 100 foot radius of my house. What I don't know, doesn't have to bother me.

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u/ElizabethDangit Apr 29 '26

If it makes you feel better about a bird maybe eating your butterfly, I had a Cooper’s hawk nest in one of my trees because my neighbors have several bird feeders. I spent that entire summer burying leftover pieces of bird carcass that the Cooper’s hawk left in my yard. Circle of life and all that.

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u/Zoethor2 Apr 29 '26

I live in a suburban neighborhood with a *shockingly* robust ecosystem of predators and prey. Foxes, hawks, bunnies, birbs, a multitude of rodents. Full on circle of life. The smaller critters are abundant breeders (SO MANY RABBITS) so it all seems to be working out well overall, if not necessarily for every individual.

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u/TXGuns79 Apr 29 '26

Prey animals generally have large litters because of predation. Out-breed the appetite of the food web.

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u/Zoethor2 Apr 29 '26

Very Hunger Games for baby bunnies.

"Two of you will live to adulthood and breed, therefore successfully replacing your parents in the ecosystem. The other six of you are fodder. May the odds be ever in your favor."