The Pets, They Fear Me

I don't think I ever recorded it, but right after we moved here last spring, several innocent animals gave up their lives for my amusement.

We already had the dog. We acquired him in Japan and must be a strong little ball of fluff as he is still living and breathing, though I frequently forget to feed and water him until he scratches and sneezes at his food bowls in a canine attempt to communicate that, "Hey, Stupid! I know you don't like to cook all the time, but I don't have a drivers license and can't go through the Mickey D's drive-through so I'm completely dependent upon your lazy ass to keep me alive!"

And then I tell Mackenzie to feed him.

I think the death-toll is somewhere around 8 fish and 2 aquatic crabs.

Anyway, Dillon wanted a snake. We said, "No way in Hell." He counter-offered with a ferret (refer back to answer #1), and then came up with the lizard idea. So we went and looked at them. He came home with a Chinese Water Dragon and all the required accessories (including a container of live crickets which must be refilled on a weekly basis - ewww). His name is Stanley, and though I was in charge of his well-being all summer long, he is still with us.



My problem seems to lie in the aquatic realm.

Mackenzie wanted an aquarium. We bought her a 5-gallon freshwater with 5 or 6 fish. None of the original fish are still living, though that's not entirely my fault. We brought home a fish with "Ick", who infected all of the others, who then, one by one, slowly kicked the bucket despite my best efforts at marine veterinary science and a product called "Ick-Away". We also bought a couple of teeny-tiny brown crabs. We had to put them in a decorative shallow glass bowl because they kept scaling the filter and climbing out the back. And then I'd have to chase them down. And sometimes I'd have to wait stealthily outside Mac's bookcase until they came peeking back out, thinking all was safe, and then I'd whomp a tupperware over the top of them. So finally, they ended up in the glass bowl on the coffee table where everyone could enjoy them and the sides were too slippery to perform a Birdman of Alcatraz. Until one died and the other molted. And I wanted to get a peek at the renewed crab and lifted up a corner of the rock it was hiding under, at which point it (obviously) scooted further under the rock, and then the rock slipped out of my hands. And I squished it.

And then I made Tiny-Little-Crabcakes.

We also bought a Betta for the kitchen. He lasted about 2 weeks. Until I washed out his bowl with Palmolive (which I totally know you're not supposed to do but did it anyway) and he died.

Then we bought a pop-eyed goldfish for the same bowl. I rinsed the bowl out sufficiently, but apparently forgot about the rocks. He was dead by dinner.

I still haven't lived down the murderous rampage and my family is still teasing me about the carnage. In spite of all this, Mac has asked if we can get some more crabs and another Betta but I'm not sure in good conscience I can deliberately go to the store and select any more creatures to be my next involuntary victims.