I've had my share of
four legged kids over the years. I’ve had everything from dogs and cats to
gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, also fish and birds. Some of them were
great pets others not so much. I won't ever have another fish tank. I gave my
last one to someone I didn't like just to get rid of it. I realized how much
noise it added to the house after it was gone. I had to turn the TV up loud all
the time just to hear it. I thought I was going deaf. I didn't realize how much
background noise it added to the house, the hum from the filter didn't seem
that loud when I stood next to it. The first time I turned the TV on after the
tank was gone I wondered why the hell it was so loud, really loud. It was akin
to that day you're running errands jamming out to your car stereo. You shut the
car off at the end of that great song you've heard a million times, but you
just had to listen all the way to the end with the volume cranked. Later you
come out of the store, start the car and blow out your ears because the volume
is still maxed out. I should have known it wasn't a great idea for me when I
got the tank because our cat never paid it much attention, though I think she
was more afraid of the noise the filter made. No more fish for me unless its
beer battered with fries and slaw.
The first dog I ever
acquired was mainly due to my inability to say no convincingly enough to a cutie
with big tits. A few of my running buddies and I were partying at her house one
night. She had a litter of puppies she was trying to get rid of and apparently
I was drunk enough to send home with one. The next morning my seriously hung-over
ass rolled over on to something wet as I was greeted with the smell of puppy
breath and a little wet tongue all over my face. I realized later that the wet
stuff I rolled in was puppy piss. Good Morning you are now a dog owner! That
was the summer I spent in training as a motivational speaker living in a van
down by the river, or the parking lot behind the grocery store, or the little rest
area on a back road in the sticks, or … You get the picture. I had no business
trying to care for a dog when I couldn't my own stuff in one sock let alone give a dog
what he needed. He was a cute little
ball of fur that was part German Shepherd. I named him Friday because I got him
on a Friday. Now that’s stoner originality at its finest for sure. I think I
still have a couple of pictures of him around in a box under the bed. Doesn't
everybody keep old pictures there? I finally realized he deserved better than
me for an owner when I caught him chewing on my tire iron to exercise his
little puppy teeth and knew I he would be much better off with someone that had
more sense than I did. I found him a good home with a fireman I knew a couple
days later and went back to living here and there in my van the rest of that perpetually
foggy summer.
I’ve probably had more
cats than any other pet. I’ve had hunters that left me proof of their skill by
the back door, a couple that wanted you to play fetch with them, one that bit
your leg just hard enough to get your attention, another that begged for peanut
butter whenever you opened the jar and a couple that could carry on a
conversation with full sentences in cat language. To me cats are pretty low
maintenance, though I know others would say no. Everyone has their own idea of
what low maintenance is.
Now I have a new
critter experience to add to the list. For the past month my wife and I have
been babysitting a pair of chinchillas. We were asked to help out a friend that
needed some time to get her new apartment in shape before bringing the little
guys home. I knew a girl way back in elementary school that talked about the chinchillas
she had but I had never seen one before except in pictures. They are just balls
of fluff, very fluffy fluff and incredibly soft. They weigh almost nothing their
size is all from hair. Occasionally we let them out of their cage in the office
to give them more room to run around and play. If you sat on the floor one
would jump up and sit on your leg and you barely felt it. A bag of cotton balls
weighs more. They are rather social after dark, though in the daytime not so
much except when it was treat time. Their diet consists mostly of hay, though
they did get a morning treat of a mini shredded wheat square each. At night
they each got one raisin and man did they know when it was time for raisins. Little
twitching noses would push through the bars in the cage and we’d get scolded in
chinchilla if we weren’t fast enough with the raisins. They both made those
little treats go all gone really quickly. They take baths in dust. There is a cylinder
type thing in the cage that you fill with this special dust and they roll
around in it. When they come out they look like they raided a flour sack. If
chinchilla shit could be made into shotgun pellets you would wear your arm out
pressing shells. They are without a doubt the shittingest critters I’ve ever
been around. If turd size was more proportional to the amount we would have
been in trouble. Chinchillas are surely sweet little animals and it sucks to think that in
parts of the world they are raised just for the pelts. They have since gone
home and though we are glad to have that corner of the office back it was a
rather interesting experience having those two around for a few weeks. I think
our cats miss the kitty TV entertainment value they offered.
