The Case of the Dead Goldfish

Was playing the loserest (yes, I like this word) version of solitaire... for those of you who want to feel better, its single card, non-timed, standard scoring... and occasionally losing when I remembered this story.
A friend of mine walked into her home one evening and found her goldfish lying outside the bowl, dead (duh.). She did the whole distraught calling deal and finally scooped the piscean into a plastic bag and dumped him in the nearest trash bin. But something felt wrong... why would a goldfish that lived in a clean bowl, had fresh water and those delicious fishfood pellets in near unlimited supply decide to jump out of the bowl? Before some smart alec goes how do you know he jumped? Because the bowl and the water are intact and Sherlock, its a goldfish not a flying fish. I think its sheer boredom. The ennui killed the fish. (Just wanted to use that word there. Think its a really interesting word...)
Now scientifically speaking the average goldfish has a short-medium term memory of about 3 seconds. A really smart one might reach five. An interesting corollary to this is that if you put two of them in a large bowl, almost every time they swim around and see each other its like a first meeting. They made a Drew Barrymore movie with a similar theme... I digress, the point of all this is how can a 5 second memory entity get bored? And so bored that it killed itself?
Bottom line I just think its a story that my friend's potential fiance should know.

Couple of Asides here's poem I read a while back... (the source of the Ennui)
A is for Alice who fell down the stairs,
B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
C is for Clara who wasted away,
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.
G is for George smothered under a rug,
H is for Hector done in by a thug.
I is for Ida, who drown in a lake,
J is for James, who took lye by mistake.
K is for Kate, who was struck with an axe,
L is for Leo, who swallowed some tacks.
M is for Maud, who was swept out to sea,
N is for Nevil who died of ennui.
O is for Olive, run through with an awl,
P is for Pru, tramped flat in a brawl.
Q is for Quinton, who sank in a mire,
R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
S is for Susan, who perished of fits,
T is for Titus, who flew into bits.
U is for Una, who slipped down a drain,
V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
W is for Winnie, imbedded in ice,
X is for Xerces, devoured by mice.
Y is for Yoric, whose head was bashed in,
Z is for Zilla, who drank too much gin.

Edward Gorey (1925-2000)

And there's a film called Goldfish Memory that centres around single people in Ireland and their love lives and how its a mad dating game with everybody involved behaving like they have... well goldfish memories.

And finally someone trained a goldfish to push a lever for food and has now inferred that they may remember things for up to three months. There goes my theory.