Our new house came with a gigantic hole in the wall.

It was hollowed out within the drywall connecting the living room to the laundry. It welcomed easy conversation between someone sitting on the couch and someone washing the linens. That was a plus, if you were looking for one. Possibly the hole helped freshen the air and increase airflow to a room known for often being a tad damp.

But this hole, about 24 inches by 36 inches, was no accident. It was not the result of an angry previous homeowner's throwing a full bottle of Clorox through the wall when he realized he'd washed the whites with a red sock. I knew this hole was, for some unimaginable reason, purposeful for two reasons. First, its shape. I've lived with holes in walls before. When my German roommate was watching the World Cup and a German soccer player made a bad move, his foot went through our wall and ended up on the outside of our house, his sneaker in the garden. Once his foot was pulled back inside and the wall was examined, the result was a jagged, lopsided testament to his love of soccer and country. My hole was squared off. And more importantly, it was framed — the second reason. Someone framed the hole that looked in from the living room to the laundry as one would a picture window, only the scene was far less serene — less beach view, more bleach view.

As it would turn out, the aquatic picture window idea was not too far off. The framed hole previously held an aquarium.

Moving to a new home in the wild with two young children and an 18-pound rabbit was enough stress and runaround for me to have any interest in replacing the aquarium. After all, we now lived on a lake. If we wanted fish, we could just go outside. So the framed hole remained just that. It was very convenient for when I wanted to ask my husband to take my jeans or bra out of the wash to dry on a line but didn't care enough to actually get up off the couch to ask him face to face. My level of laziness surely would have left me with shrunken clothing, so the ease of calling through a gigantic hole in the wall saved my wardrobe.

As the months rolled on, it felt time to give the wall-quarium a shot. This did not come without its trials. The size of the hole, apparently, is not the size of most aquariums, and we would need to custom order. When we found the appropriate-sized tank, I bought fake plants, a whiskey barrel tunnel, a fish castle and black sand to spruce up the joint. But I forgot to wash the black sand before putting it in. Once water was added, the tank was opaque. The fish store owners said it was probably just dust and we should give it a few days to settle. We gave it a month. Pitch-black. They suggested filters. We went through three. We were no longer the weird new family with the hole in the living room. We were the weird new family with a black tank that one would half expect to find a human brain or severed hand in. We gave it another month.

Last week, we hit the year mark of living in our new home. I decided to celebrate by getting fish. To get fish-ready, I spent four hours removing all of the water from the tank, cupful by cupful, carrying bucket after bucket of death juice out to our back porch and pouring it over the side railings. I cleaned the sides of the aquarium, the film surely harboring koi smallpox. I filled the tank with new water. I could finally see through it again, to a perfect view of my old friend the laundry. I brought a water sample in to the fish store. They tested the levels. They said it was safe for fish.

I asked for ones that were hardy. I believe "bulletproof" was the word of choice. I took home six.

Five days later, I have six belly-up fish blocking my view of the washer and dryer. Bang bang.

I never thought of my family as aquarium people. "Hole people" we can get behind.

Katiedid Langrock is author of the book "Stop Farting in the Pyramids," available at http://www.creators.com/books/stop-farting-in-the-pyramids. Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. To find out more about her and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.