A Fishy Tale

Three fish living in a fish pond in a park in Boston were bored with life in their little pond. After much discussion one day, they decided to leave the pond and join the dry-landers who always seemed to have much to do and never got bored.
For months they practiced getting out of the pond at night and wiggling around on dry land. At first, it was for just a few minutes, but gradually, they were able to stay out longer and longer. Eventually, they grew legs and lungs and were ready for their great move to dry land.
The next night when they got out of the pond they decided the first thing to do was look for food. They were surprised to find that on dry land they saw much of the same unappetizing food that people often threw in their pond for them to eat. Things like cigarette butts, bottle caps and plastic coffee cups. Those things didn't appeal to them so they continued on.
They didn't go much further though before they came upon a drunk laying on the sidewalk. The drunk spotted them and started screaming about monsters coming from hell to get him (actually, monsters from hell were coming to get him, but that's another story). The screaming drunk frightened them because they didn't realize that nobody would pay any attention to a drunk screaming about monsters. They ran back to the pond as fast as they could go.
The next morning they discussed it while visors in the park threw them cigarette butts and a few pennies. They decided they should not give up, but they needed to disguise themselves so they wouldn't attract too much attention.
That night, they got out of the pond again, but this time, the first thing they did was search under some of the bushes until they found some clothes left behind by some of those “humid beans” that were always hanging out in the park. They dressed themselves the best they could and headed off into town.
This time they were lucky enough to wander into an alley between two rows of restaurants, so they found plenty to eat. They liked spaghetti which resembled the worms they sometimes ate, but tasted much better. They also liked some of the strange, but tasty, things they found in the can behind the vegan restaurant. Unfortunately, their next stop was a trash can behind a seafood restaurant. When they saw the shell of a lobster and the fish heads, they turned and ran back to the pond again.
It took them several days to get up the nerve to try going into town again. This time, they stayed away from the seafood restaurant. They ate well, then wandered around for a while, exploring this strange, new world. It was an exciting time for them.
They were not quite ready to move into town permanently, so they continued to go to town at night and return to the pond in the early morning.
After a while, they learned that if they wanted to stay on dry land, they would have to get jobs, so they started going out in daylight to look for jobs. They had changed enough by now that, with clothes on, nobody noticed they were fish. Very mutated fish, but still fish.
Within a week, they all had jobs of sorts. One sweep the city sidewalks at night. One sold newspapers on a street corner. The third played harmonica for donations.
Things were going reasonably well for the new land dwellers, but it didn't last. The harmonica player got arrested for peddling without a license and his friends had to rescue him. A stray cat tried to eat the newspaper seller and a street sweeper pulled a leg off of the one sweeping sidewalks (which, fortunately, grew back quickly). With those problems along with air pollution hurting their newly formed lungs, junk food making them fat and sick, and the constant noise making them nearly deaf, they decided they had enough of the big city and living with the humid beans.
That night, they headed back to their pond with the intention of moving back permanently. Unfortunately, it was now 2009 and when they got back to the pond they found it occupied. A stock broker and two bankers with SCUBA gear had moved in and were not willing to share the pond with three normal fish, never mind three very mutated ones. So the three fish reluctantly went back to their jobs and hovel in the city where they remain today.
So remember, if a short, smelly guy tries to sell you a newspaper, he may just be an edible fish!