How To Travel With A Goldfish

My life in carry-on luggage

- Michael Winter

It probably began with my Toronto goldfish. I could find no one to take care of the fish, and so I brought him with me to Pearson airport for a summer in Newfoundland. That’s where I grew up and where I return every year to a summer place I bought with money I won from a short story prize.

I’d read the airline regulations and had the fish in his bowl in a sealed plastic bag with a small amount of water. I had, in my luggage, several vials of water to pour on him once we’d gone through the X-ray. I told people behind me in the queue they might be better off in another line. Security took one look at the goldfish bowl on the conveyor belt and said, “No, no, you can’t bring a fish on board.” I said there was nothing in the regulations about a live fish. The line was halted and a manager fetched, who sized up the situation and also said no. We continued up the chain in this way until the person who, I think, built the airport security system came and agreed with me that, technically, I was allowed to bring the goldfish on board.