Living with Animals

For a very short time, as a child, I longed for a pet. My sister and I would beg and beg our parents but it would always come down to one argument: “If we get a pet dad will have to take a bunch of shots for his allergies.” –Mom-

Right after Sarah and I graduated 1^st grade my sister inherited a hermit crab from her teacher. (When we said pet, we meant something with fur) Sarah was put under “extreme trust” for the classroom pet. In reality it was the teacher’s solution on how to save a few gallons of water from flushing the fella down the toilet at the end of the school year. Anyway, we’d hardly had the thing for a month when it up and died while vacationing at the Jersey shore. My sister bawled for hours and reluctantly sent her teacher a note describing the horrifying situation. Long story short – the teacher could not have cared less.

From that moment on we became a hermit crab family. Talk about a boring pet! All day long they would stay in their shells completely immovable. When it was time for bed the lights would go out and it was party time! About twenty minutes into lights-out I would begin to hear the craggling of rocks being shifted to make room for the mighty legs of the h-crab. Excitedly I would jump out of bed and flip on the lights to catch a piece of the action. Unfortunately the crab would be back in its shell, displaced by about three quarters of an inch. Again… literally the most boring pet in the world.

I had two great friends when I was younger. They both had dogs. One dog was tiny, white, and high on crack cocaine. The other was tall, skinny, and poodle crazy. Needless to say, I was terrified. Whenever I would sleepover at one of their houses I would lie awake all night waiting to be devoured. I wished for all the world that everyone had a harmless hermit crab as a pet. These sleepless nights instilled within my young self the mindset that one in four dogs were insane. For the most part, that gave me reason to avoid dogs altogether. It just wasn’t worth the risk.

As I got older and realized how easily I could kill a dog if it went rouge, my irrationalities disappeared. I now decided I didn’t like dogs simply because they were always up against my shins demanding attention. Oh yeah, and also they poop in very inconvenient locations. Juxtapose this with the demeanor of the cat. The cat stays out of your way most of the time unless it needs something, it’s relatively small, and best of all it buries its filth.

If asked how I currently feel about having a pet I would have to say that I’m against it. Movies like “Marley and Me” cannot sway me. I may have never seen it but I’m pretty sure I caught the gist of it. If any movie is going to persuade me to get into the pet scene it’s going to be “Airbud.” An animal that can create positive profits if exploited… I’m down! I could also see myself getting a pet if I have kids and these conditions hold:

(Total costs of pet + Nuisance of pet) ≤ (Movies distracting from fact that kids still do not have pet) ≤ (Cost of toys for kids + Nuisance of complaints for a pet)

Your thoughts?