Man Reunited with Goldfish After 10-Year Separation

By Alexa Darrin

Published: September 4, 2009

At long last, Thomas Farley’s 10-year search for his beloved goldfish, Thaddeus Maximilian Huxley, has come to a joyous conclusion. Man and fish were reunited on September 4th, 2009 in a tearful display of emotion and relief.

Farley’s mother, Gertrude Farley, has stated that upon arriving home from work, she found Thaddeus in a fishbowl on their front steps. Tied to the fishbowl was a note which included an address where Farley could send the reward check. When asked how he knows this is the correct fish, Farley responds, “I can just sense his fish spirit. Not only does Thaddeus look a certain way, he has very specific behaviors.” He points proudly to the fish tank. “When I tap the tank, he swims to front of the glass, and when I put food in the tank, he comes up to the surface.”

Farley owned the goldfish for five years, four months, and nine days before its mysterious disappearance. “One day, I came home, and Thad was just gone,” Farley remembers. “No note, nothing. I am sure he was kidnapped—he would have left a note if he wanted to leave.” Farley immediately called the police, but they refused to help, so Farley was forced to conduct a solo investigation.

“The first 24 hours were very traumatic,” he explains, “because, statistically speaking, if you don’t find them within that time period, your chances of ever finding them decrease exponentially.” That first evening, Farley went door-to-door to ask if anyone had seen his fish, and to enlist community members in the cause, but no one was able to help him.

“It was a very dark time for Tom,” says Gertrude Farley, shaking her head. “He didn’t want to do any of the things he used to enjoy. He started drinking a lot… a lot of Mountain Dew, and would just stare at the empty fish tank. I told him I saw on TV that Mountain Dew shrinks your sperm count, but he just replied he didn’t care, what was the use if Thaddeus wasn’t here.”

During Thaddeus’s absence, Farley was tormented by guilt at having let something like this happen to such an innocent and delicate creature. “Goldfish have special needs, and I was worried that whoever took him wouldn’t know what to do, like if they hadn’t read The Idiot’s Guide to Caring for Your Goldfish, or looked up ‘Goldfish’ on Wikipedia,” Farley explains with anguish. “Somebody who didn’t know better might have put him in saltwater instead of freshwater. Or they might have tried to feed him too much, and then his intestines would have burst.”

Farley posted reward posters on a regular basis, but his efforts yielded nothing. “A couple kids came over about seven years ago with a goldfish, claiming they had found Thad. But the goldfish had a little bit of black on his tail. Thad was completely gold. They were obviously just after the reward money, but I’m not that gullible.”

When asked why he didn’t simply buy a new fish, Farley, horrified, responds, “If you lost your dog, or your child, would you go out and get a new one? You can’t just replace your goldfish!”

“We were all urging him to let the fish go, but he just wouldn’t listen,” says Gary Walton, Farley’s neighbor. “I thought maybe the fish was stolen by the fraternity down the street, to be used as part of initiation. I read about that online, how they sometimes make freshmen swallow a goldfish. But I didn’t have the heart to tell Tom.”

Despite the naysayers, Farley insists he felt something inside telling him to keep trying. “I never gave up hope, I knew this day would finally come,” says Farley, who has kept Thaddeus’s tank ready and waiting for these 10 long years. “I wanted to make sure that he knew he always had a place here. Imagine how traumatizing it would have been for him to return home to find his tank gone.” Farley kept up his routine of cleaning the tank weekly, and made sure to always have fish food and shelled peas on hand.

While the identity of the kidnapper remains unknown, Farley has his own suspicions. “Most kidnappings are done by people you know. Mom’s quilting club had a meeting here a couple weeks before Thad was stolen, and one of the women mentioned how beautiful he was. But Mom said she never came to another quilting meeting after that.” Farley questioned all the women in the quilting club during the weeks after Thaddeus’s disappearance, but no one was able to give him any useful information.

As he had always been worried his fish might be kidnapped, Farley had already taken preventative measures. “We had a code phrase, and he wasn’t supposed to take food from or leave with anyone who didn’t know it—which really makes me worry it was somebody close to us.” When he adopted Thaddeus, Farley made sure to educate himself like any good parent would. He learned that kids should yell loudly and run away if someone tries to grab them. “But goldfish can’t run and yell,” Farley laments. “They are just so helpless.”

Acknowledging that his efforts to prevent a kidnapping the first time were not enough, Farley has installed a security camera and alarm system in his home to prevent a repeat incident. He now has the ability to monitor Thaddeus even while at work.

The Farleys would like to invite all members of the community for Thaddeus’s homecoming party, to be held on Saturday at the Farley residence. Ms. Farley will be serving her famous Casserole surprise, and they ask respectfully that no one bring fish crackers.