Freaking blogger lost my post!
So no poetic ode the chocolate lab, most noble of dogs, boon companions and killers of overpriced toys. (My brohter's mammoth sized lab got to sleep inside when it was freezing, and snuck into the pantry and ate....wait for it... a box of crackers and my brother's Silpat. HA! This is in the fine family tradition, since our dog when we were kids snuck into the garage and ate my father's wet suit.) I find it astonishing that both dogs survived--not so much for the eating of the Silpat as the PASSING of the Silpat, but definitely for the EATING of the wetsuit.
I am not a person who yearns for eighteen pets. I would love a dog for the kids if I didn't know that I would be the one scooping up after it. I scoop up enough non-smelly oozy things in my role as mom. Literally adding shit to the list is not high on my priorities. But I figure pets in all forms teach kids, and so I caved last weekend and bought a fish.
Big O has been down the aquatic path, and he learned about the sometimes brief lifecycle of a carp. I thought we should get something hardy for Little O, and so we bought a Betta. People keep those in their offices in tea cups for pete's sake. We could manage this...
Until I got home and googled how to set up your tiny new fishbowl. That's when I found out that I am Beelzebub for confining the noble Betta to such hideous living conditions. I think one website may have suggested that I might also live in a baby seal coat, with a steady diet of veal, and list michael vick as a friend on MySpace.
Our Betta seems okay in the wee bowl that I bought for Big O's cell model for seventh grade science. But I have yet to see it eat the pellets the pet store sold us. sigh.
Back to the pet store on Friday for a bigger bowl (One gallon of water per inch? I have to buy a TWO gallon tank for the stupid desktop fish? AND freeze dried blood worms?)
Would I get called in for a parent teacher conference next year if my kindergartner tells her class she has a fish named Beelzebub? Can I convince her that was Belle's full name in Beauty and the Beast?
3 comments:
I cursed my BIL when he gave my son a Beta. Because my stress and worry to keep the thing alive is way worse than for the dog and 3 cats.
He didn't live long...in the giant freaking tank
Our Beta got chewed up by 5 zebra fish... so he died. We were so mad because that was the second fish that they devoured that we flushed the little evil bastards. No regrets either.
Oddly, I can do dogs better than I can do fish. Dogs kind make sure you don't forget about them while fish are pretty quiet about the whole thing.
We have a poodle. It may not sound exciting but she doesn't shed and that excites me a whole lot. And she doesn't bark hardly at all. I think I won the dog lottery.
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