Cheap Pets

There you are, minding your own business just biking along. Your peripheral vision is operational, but not on turbo, and suddenly, BAM.

3 seconds after you bike past it, you realize that "it" was a dead squirrel.

A dead bloated squirrel to be precise.

Not that this is a "dead animal blog". Then the words "snippits from a people watcher" would take on a whole new meaning involving tufts of fur and murdered rodents who had dared to peer inside Little Sally's window. (...and Little Sally's father is Big Mike--who owns a 12 gauge)

My immediate first thought was: My Roommate!!! She has a job with a museum cleaning animals out and stuffing them for display, so, you know, I figured I would be doing her a favor. I was even willing to concede used of the kitchen or bathroom counters for possible observation of her craft.

I probably need to be more grateful to my second thoughts. The thoughts that called to mind the Janitor and his squirrel army. I have a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't be called sane. Plus, my roommate had just that day gotten the "pleasure" of dealing with a large animal that had accidentally been "cooked" under a tarp leading to the vet's observation:

"That doesn't look like it died yesterday...it looks like it died last week."

Ah well, one lives and learns, I suppose.


Think about it...all those animals in the world scampering around eating things and when they get old: dying. Then we, the ever mournful beings that we are, have our various burial practices. We stuff them. We burn them. We pretend they aren't dead until someone forces us to clean out the cage (or the city does). We flush them down the toilet.

Hopefully, you keep separate the specific animals that get a particular treatment.

A pet is great because they live with you, crawl on your lap, and when you name them, you don't go out to the meadow the next day and:

A) Hope they don't have rabies so you won't die by getting too close

B) Don't have to wonder which one you named "Bonn-Bonn-Bunny" the day before

*sigh* I'm taking care of flatmate's rats and cats while she's at a convention this weekend. The kitten is an ankle biting terror. I'm thinking I might just have the lavish imaginary skills necessary to "adopt" a community critter of my own.

Name it. Smile beatifically at it every time I see one of its general species. Imagine holding it, stroking its plushy fur. This would put be dead-on in my training to be a crazy cat lady.

Or I could just do what my little sister does. Adopt a plant and take it for walks. Plus, they cost less.