Some people have a weird recessive gene that makes them love all animals. I've deduced that because I love animals in a borderline obsessive way, which super freaks out my parents. Like I've already resigned myself to the eventual Hoarders episode my 75 year-old self will star in where they struggle to explain how I have 135 golden retrievers and one palomino pony, whereas Mom and Dad are big fans of chicken nuggets and rodents who died terrible deaths.
Growing up not having pets would have been the equivalent of making five-year old me follow a raw vegan diet. I begged for Newfoundland puppies and white kittens, and especially a flying squirrel. Shockingly my parents didn't acquiesce to that one (things got real when I demanded a unicorn).
We eventually got a puppy and then a succession of cats. We would get a cat, it would get eaten by a coyote, then we'd get another cat and restart the trauma all over again. Finally we found a cat that was more evasive but that's mostly because it was feral. Fortunately childhood me didn't care if my pets loved me back.
Mom and Dad were pretty inflexible beyond the dogs and cats. As an Adult, their attitude makes sense to me. As a kid, it was unpardonable. I got around parental resistance and my lack of purchasing power by adopting - well, finding wild animals and attempting to domesticate them. Not surprisingly this didn't always have happy endings.
First there was:
I had Manty for one week before I had to let him (?) go because I didn't know what to feed him (again, ? I didn't know how to sex a preying mantis and my parents discouraged me from plugging those search terms into Ask Jeeves). Manty and I had some nice times where he balanced on the end of my pencil while I did math homework.
My wildest avian dreams also came true and I had a baby hummingbird for awhile:
It was really fun to show off my baby hummingbird to my friends!
Cause of death remains unknown, but at least the funeral was beautiful.
My favorite 'wild pet' came from my grandparents' cabin in central California. Their house sat at the intersection of three creeks - well, hm. Now that I think about it as an adult it was probably just one creek with different access points.
Actually it was:
The creek had a proliferation of California newts. This inspired my aunts and uncles to fits of what they thought was cleverness, coming up with newt puns to name various parts of the property. I don't know if they ever understood how much trouble they got me in.
One Easter we were at the cabin and a torrential downpour hit. Our Easter egg hunt was ruined, but that was okay because rain though lured out a much, much better attraction than what the Easter Bunny had in store: newts.
They were everywhere - they came out in droves. I have no idea why this particular rain made the newts so active. But I had never seen anything like it then, and I've never seen anything like it since. It was like March of the Penguins, but with me and two hundred cold-blooded salamander-wannabes.
I couldn't even believe my good fortune. To put it mildly, I was thrilled.
I threw on my most serious naturalist outfit, grabbed my Easter basket, and ran screaming outside.
Fortunately for me newts on land are pretty slow, so it's not hard to 'befriend' them.
I put newt after newt into my Easter basket. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with all the newts I collected. Maybe a tea party or something - I could invite my stuffed animals. It would be nice.
My parents had other ideas.
And there it was. My parents were unable to ignore the connection we had formed - or my desperate sobbing - and agreed to let me have a pet newt of my very own.
We brought him (for the third time - ?) home in a little terrarium, but Mom got worried he'd feel confined. So, at least for the night, we put him in their steep-sided, slippery bathtub.
I went to bed that night dreaming of all the adventures Norman and I would have. Specifically, I fantasized about being a goddamn rock star that month at class Show and Tell.
The next day I woke up extra early and scampered into my parents' bathroom. What I saw sadly wasn't going to be the most horrifying experience in my life as a pet owner (in high school my beloved cockatiel got eaten by a hawk and I still find nothing humorous about it) but it was still pretty terrible:
Expectations:
Reality:
We searched high and low for Norman but couldn't find him anywhere. I was inconsolable, but Mum convinced me he had found a new life elsewhere.
I bought it until about a year later. My parents were moving their bedroom furniture around. Exciting because I could pick up loose change that had fallen behind things and add to my coin hoard.
This should have been a really excellent lesson about respecting nature by observing rather than possessing it. Norman's death was at least traumatizing enough that for a few years I was pretty satisfied with my dogs and cats.
But then in middle school, I somehow got back to my old tricks.
to be continued...
Growing up not having pets would have been the equivalent of making five-year old me follow a raw vegan diet. I begged for Newfoundland puppies and white kittens, and especially a flying squirrel. Shockingly my parents didn't acquiesce to that one (things got real when I demanded a unicorn).
We eventually got a puppy and then a succession of cats. We would get a cat, it would get eaten by a coyote, then we'd get another cat and restart the trauma all over again. Finally we found a cat that was more evasive but that's mostly because it was feral. Fortunately childhood me didn't care if my pets loved me back.
Mom and Dad were pretty inflexible beyond the dogs and cats. As an Adult, their attitude makes sense to me. As a kid, it was unpardonable. I got around parental resistance and my lack of purchasing power by adopting - well, finding wild animals and attempting to domesticate them. Not surprisingly this didn't always have happy endings.
First there was:
I had Manty for one week before I had to let him (?) go because I didn't know what to feed him (again, ? I didn't know how to sex a preying mantis and my parents discouraged me from plugging those search terms into Ask Jeeves). Manty and I had some nice times where he balanced on the end of my pencil while I did math homework.
My wildest avian dreams also came true and I had a baby hummingbird for awhile:
My favorite 'wild pet' came from my grandparents' cabin in central California. Their house sat at the intersection of three creeks - well, hm. Now that I think about it as an adult it was probably just one creek with different access points.
Actually it was:
The creek had a proliferation of California newts. This inspired my aunts and uncles to fits of what they thought was cleverness, coming up with newt puns to name various parts of the property. I don't know if they ever understood how much trouble they got me in.
One Easter we were at the cabin and a torrential downpour hit. Our Easter egg hunt was ruined, but that was okay because rain though lured out a much, much better attraction than what the Easter Bunny had in store: newts.
They were everywhere - they came out in droves. I have no idea why this particular rain made the newts so active. But I had never seen anything like it then, and I've never seen anything like it since. It was like March of the Penguins, but with me and two hundred cold-blooded salamander-wannabes.
I couldn't even believe my good fortune. To put it mildly, I was thrilled.
I threw on my most serious naturalist outfit, grabbed my Easter basket, and ran screaming outside.
Fortunately for me newts on land are pretty slow, so it's not hard to 'befriend' them.
I put newt after newt into my Easter basket. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with all the newts I collected. Maybe a tea party or something - I could invite my stuffed animals. It would be nice.
My parents had other ideas.
And there it was. My parents were unable to ignore the connection we had formed - or my desperate sobbing - and agreed to let me have a pet newt of my very own.
We brought him (for the third time - ?) home in a little terrarium, but Mom got worried he'd feel confined. So, at least for the night, we put him in their steep-sided, slippery bathtub.
I went to bed that night dreaming of all the adventures Norman and I would have. Specifically, I fantasized about being a goddamn rock star that month at class Show and Tell.
The next day I woke up extra early and scampered into my parents' bathroom. What I saw sadly wasn't going to be the most horrifying experience in my life as a pet owner (in high school my beloved cockatiel got eaten by a hawk and I still find nothing humorous about it) but it was still pretty terrible:
Expectations:
Reality:
We searched high and low for Norman but couldn't find him anywhere. I was inconsolable, but Mum convinced me he had found a new life elsewhere.
I bought it until about a year later. My parents were moving their bedroom furniture around. Exciting because I could pick up loose change that had fallen behind things and add to my coin hoard.
This should have been a really excellent lesson about respecting nature by observing rather than possessing it. Norman's death was at least traumatizing enough that for a few years I was pretty satisfied with my dogs and cats.
But then in middle school, I somehow got back to my old tricks.
to be continued...
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