I pointed it out and said, "What's that?"
Janet looked surprised. "That's a catfish!"
It was about a foot long, maybe a little longer, and had spiny things on its head that were about where a cat would have whiskers. It was sort of using its front fins like a person would if he were crawling on his elbows.
Apparently catfish can walk, after a fashion. They sometimes get swept out of their home pond by a big rainstorm (which we have lots of in Florida) and end up in a smaller one. When the smaller pond dries up, the catfish drags itself across the land back to the water.
Our catfish was out in the middle of Kinnan Road and we were afraid it would get hit by a car. So I hopped out and went over to it, and tried to pick it up so I could take it over to the roadside puddle where it was heading.
I tried to pick it up and I simply could not get a grip on it! I would put my hand around it, and squeeze about as hard as you should have to squeeze something that big, and it would simply wriggle right out of my hand. It was slimy and cold and felt like, well, like a fish.
Once I picked it up and tried to hold its head with my other hand, but when I touched the spines it stopped wriggling. I was afraid I had hurt it, and I put it back down. It moved a little, and from then on I just sort of gave it gentle pushes with the side of my shoe.
I felt proud of this little fish. He was gamely struggling across the road, almost as though he had tried real hard to evolve into a higher lifeform and wasn't quite far enough along. For a moment I thought of how we humans navigated to the Moon using FORTRAN programs, punched cards, and core memory.
I guided him all the way to the puddle, and he flopped in there and rested for a bit.
Then I went to get back in the car, and my hands were all slimy. Janet handed me a beach towel we keep in the back seat, and I dried my hands. Then I folded the towel up and put it away so we wouldn't get slime on the seat.
Janet said, "When we get home you better take the towel inside and wash it."
"Oh, the fishtowel?", I said. "..hmm. I guess a fishtowel is what you use when they come out of the fishwasher and they're not dry yet. Hey, I think we need to buy some fishwashing liquid."
Janet groaned at these awful puns. But later she got me back.
She said, "He was trying to get back to fishilization."
Ow. That hurt.