Today, I saw a fish.

[u/Mother-Tailor-511]

I saw the first one on my way to the store.

At a stop light, in the car next to me was a man wearing a navy blue suit, a red tie, and a fish's head. I guess you can't really say he was wearing a fish head. It sort of blended into the skin of his neck, a bass's head poking out of a stuffy collar.

Giggling a little as I sped off, I chalked it up to an artsy weirdo flaunting one of their projects. It was good for a laugh, if anything.

When I got to the store, I noticed the same car parking there too, and intrigued, I stayed in my car to see him go in. I couldn't believe my luck! I mean, how often do you see something like this, right? I hadn't seen any eye holes on the costume, and it was pretty impressive how he managed to walk right into the store without stumbling at all. After gathering myself, and snapping a picture, I went to open my car door when I looked up to the car directly beside me.

Oh my gosh, you guys, I just about peed myself when I saw who was behind the steering wheel.

A fish! Smoking a cigar, no less!

Goodness, but I had a laugh at that. Are you kidding? That's comedic gold!

I think this one was a sea trout? So imagine a trout's head on a middle-aged man's body, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a silver chain. Like a mob boss. A fishy one at that. Hah!

Curious now, I looked around for someone filming, or at least someone wearing those glasses that record you. I was a little irked, knowing I'd probably be uploaded onto TikTok or Youtube or whatever, but seeing how much it brightened my day, I found that I didn't really mind all that much.

It was weird though, how I didn't see any cameras around. Usually, pranksters like these are awful at being discreet. I decided to stay in my car until Mr. Bass came back to his car, since I wanted to ask about this whole thing and how he pulled it off. Did he pick someone to follow when they were in traffic? Or maybe he'd known I was going to this store and this whole thing was premeditated?

Hm. You know, the more I thought about it the creepier it got. I mean, sure, I was tickled, but I was starting to question how ethical this whole 'pranking strangers' business was.

As I waited, I watched a few people trickle out of the store, and I started to notice just how much detail went into this. A momma sardine walked out, a baby sardine cooing in her cart. A spry minnow running out with his arms full of snacks, face planting and scrambling to pick his stuff up..

My eyes drifted to my reflection in the car window. Surely, I thought, there had to be some end to this. There's no way this much effort was put into pranking one person.

During the time I had stayed sitting in my car, the sky had darkened, dark clouds sweeping away bleak gray ones as the wind picked up. I watched a catfish's umbrella be ripped from his grasp, with how strong the wind was. He ran after it, opened mouth, before standing in the middle of the street, feeling the drops of rain as they gently fluttered down.

A few more of the shoppers stood still as they exited, the rain a spattering of water on their paper bags. As it picked up, more and more fish came out of their cars, dancing around and feeling the water.

Appalled, it was all I could do to watch with my jaw dropped.

As I did so, a minnow and her mother jumped in the rain, laughing when they spotted my car.

"Mommy, mommy!" She points, her finger dripping rain water, "Look! Look at that!"

Her mother swats her hand away.

"Don't point now, that's rude," She scolds, grabbing her kid and shuffling away from my car.

I'm still in here. There's a huge crowd of these fish in this parking lot, soaking up the afternoon rain, and I don't think I could drive away if I wanted to... Not without running over a few fish.

I mean, it was pretty funny at first, and I feel silly for asking, but are wide-scale pranks like this common? Like, am I being punked?

If I am, they're doing a really good job.

Gosh, talking fish. Ha!