Animal Lover Mourns Idiot Animal: The Sequel

Sometime before the summer I vaguely recall writing angrily to you about the woman I work with who took a half-day off of work to escort a bird who had flown into the side of our building to an animal hospital a half hour away. Instead of working, she rushed a disease-ridden bird to an animal emergency room, where they informed her that the bird was merely stunned from the unexpected collision, needed no medical attention at all, and probably should have been left alone from the outset. Nice work.
In any case, apparently sensing that enough time had passed where another impractical act of legitimate lunacy might go unnoticed by management, this woman has now taken a full day off work to grieve the unceremonious passing of a fish. True story.
Months ago, one of the kids I work with purchased a small, half gallon fish tank and a proportionately puny betta fish (think Turkey Sub [beta fish Andy and I had in college], but half the size), which, due to the severity of the cold and darkness in his office, promptly grew sickly and weak. Due to some holiday in which Orthodox Jews aren’t allowed to have fish or animals (or something, I dunno) in their presence, he transferred the tank to my office, where it is comparatively warm, safe and awesome. Predictably, the fish thrived, growing healthy and colorful beneath my protective umbrella of ample food and clean, temperate water.
Flash forward to yesterday, when the rightful owner of said fish finally purchases a suitable heat lamp, and wishes to take it back. Fine; I’d grown tired of changing its water and watching it feast on its own shit all day, anyway.
So the exchange is made, and he brings the tank (and fish) into the break room to give the tank its monthly thorough cleaning. For whatever reason, instead of scooping the fish out and setting it aside, he chooses to literally pour the fish out of the tank and into a waiting cup in the sink. Naturally, he misses the cup entirely, and slips the fish into the sink instead, where it gets stuck, vertically, face down in the drain grate.
Squeamish at the thought of touching the fish with his bare hands, he grabs a spoon, and tries to pry it from the drain to relative safety. The aforementioned bird savior walks in the break room just in time to watch him lose the betta down the drain, presumably dead.
She screams, and verbally assaults him for being so careless before storming from the room. “A life is a life!” she bellowed upon hearing he and I laugh over the relative irony of the situation afterwards.
She would spend the rest of the afternoon literally sobbing into a tissue at her desk, refusing to speak to anyone.
She would also call in this morning, claiming that she didn’t “feel up to coming to work today”.