My history as a pet-owner was one of affectionate torture and accidental murder. First there were the pillbugs I found in the backyard when I was five, who I housed in the elaborate pillbug playground I’d made out of string, construction paper, and sticks. For a little while I was angry at them for being so ungrateful for the wonderland I’d built: most only explored it for a few seconds before freezing in place. Then I realized that I’d set them free on the playground before waiting for the glue to dry.
Next came the fish. Micah got a whole school of tiny orange fish and I got a big one with visible organs under translucent scales. While our fish were about equal in mass (and mine was undoubtedly cooler), I was still kind of resentful that Micah still had a majority, so I was happy when mine started chasing those little orange guys. Overnight, Micah’s fish started disappearing while mine became unusually bloated and, though I think just about everyone knew what had happened, my mom still humored us by putting my fish in time out in a separate container for playing “a mean game of tag.” But, wanting to pull one over on Micah, I snuck down to the tank late one night, took my fish out of time out, and gleefully watched him gobble up the rest of Micah’s. But, as soon as he’d finished, my fish collapsed to the ground, layers of see-through skin peeling off and organs bursting out as his overstuffed gut exploded.
Finally, there are the class hamsters from fourth grade, all three of them, who died one after the other in the space of a few months. One got hypothermia after a student decided he looked dirty and gave him a cold bath in the sink, another escaped our classroom in his hamster-ball and fell down two flights of stairs, and the last escaped his cage and chewed through almost an entire pencil before succumbing to lead poisoning. We never assigned blame for these deaths, but there were only six of us in the class, so we were all guilty in a way.
The only family pet who’s lasted more than a few weeks is Micah’s lizard, who has probably only made it so long (seventeen years, I think) because I knew well enough to stay away. Back in Waco we had him by the TV and he used to look up every time it turned on, but these days he just sleeps, eats crickets, and licks his eyeballs. Mom thinks he’s depressed.
All this is to say that I’ve never had much luck with pets and I’ve never understood people who do. I’m so scared of dogs that the sight or sound of one makes me tense up visibly, which I know is socially inappropriate but I’ve never been able to hide very well. I avoid cats too, considering them smaller, calmer dogs who could nevertheless do a lot of damage if I let them. Birds used to be okay, but they’ve terrified me ever since some breed vicious in its nesting season started chasing me around Grinnell over the summer, and bunnies are the enemy of my mom’s garden, so I’ve never trusted them either. Most people who learn about my fear of animals assume it comes from some childhood trauma, and while I think they’re right, I don’t think it’s the sort they’re thinking of. So many kids movies are about animals talking, thinking animals with inner lives well-developed enough to hold grudges. Around second grade I realized, if they ever share not on what I’ve done, I’m far past due for payback.
Despite my fears, though, there’s always been something appealing about the idea of a pet: to live with something not human, but that recognizes you and communicates with you and cares about you all the same. Part of what scares me about animals is that they operate on a different level of logic, that they could bite or claw me for some threat I didn’t know I was making. But that inhumanness is also what makes keeping a pet so fascinating. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of being around humans, but living on a planet with such wonderful biodiversity, it seems like a waste to go my whole life only ever interacting with the same sort of species.
This week, my girlfriend Mica said she might keep a flying squirrel in her dorm next year. The idea seemed absurd to me at first: squirrels are okay in my books since they so rarely reach out to humans, but I wouldn’t want to see what one would do if you got it trapped in a cage. Flying squirrels, though, are apparently docile, happy in captivity, and form close bonds with their owners (they’re also super cute, by the way). I’ll have graduated by the time she gets it, but I’ll visit her so often that I’m sure I’ll get close to her new pet. And maybe this can be where my bad luck with animal care turns around.
No comments:
Post a Comment