A Perilous Pet Record

It happened every time my family walked into a pet store - everything from finch to guinea pig started shaking in its cage.

Chameleons turned clear-colored, snakes tried to swallow their own tails, fish intentionally floated around on their backs, birds flew aimlessly into the walls of their cages, trying to knock themselves out.

Kinda weird, huh?

Perhaps this happened because animals have a sixth sense about people. Somehow the animal grapevine has passed along our track record of pet fatalities and the fact that our whole backyard is one big pet cemetery.

Of course all of these deaths are completely legitimate - the coroner's autopsy report proved it so in every case.

It would be convenient to blame the losses on the careless hands of my two sons, but the truth is two gerbils, two hamsters and dozens of fish met their 'Maker' under my care (as a kindergarten teacher) even before the boys were born.

Because I have a similar record with plants, I began to look for potential pets with that "cactus look" about them.

"How much care does it take? Does it need to eat?" I would ask the clerk as my sons begged for the latest "victim."

She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

"Ma'am, maybe you should look in that section over there," she suggested, pointing to the plastic plants and animals.

But it's hard to talk your children into plastic pets so we kept looking.

Fish, I decided.

"Wow, $12 for a fish?" I got a sudden flashback to my college days and that pathetic mouth-to-mouth attempt on Goldie XXI. "Let's look at the plastic stuff."

"How 'bout him?" my son asked pointing to a horned something-or-other in a sandy cage with a desert decor. He certainly looked "cactus" enough.

"Too mean-looking," I replied, eyeing the $239.99 price tag.

"A bunny?" - "Too breakable."

"A mouse?" - "Too loseable."

"A bird?" - "Too escapeable."

"A turtle" - "Too boring."

"A ferret?" - "Too sneaky."

"A snake?" - "Get real."

Finally we found something - something that didn't know enough to hide as we passed by the aquarium.

It was a marine crab and the clerk assured us it was very durable - almost 'tank-like' in fact. Put him in a salt water tank and you didn't have to feed or water him or walk, bathe or deflea him - it was great! We had him for five years - count them f-i-v-e.

Sure, Festus had his drawbacks. He didn't listen well and he wouldn't fetch a stick. He wasn't much company when everyone else was mad at me and he wouldn't bring my slippers or the newspaper at the end of a hard day at work.

So what did he do? Well, it's really more what he didn't do that made him so unique.

He didn't die.