RIP!

It's always a sad day when you loose a member of the family. You might not even be that close, but when they pass, it hurts. We have been expecting this for quite some time, he lived longer than we were told he would. I'm not sure how old he was, but I've personally known him since May 31st, 2010, when we proudly brought him home. If you are a long time follower of this blog, you may remember the day he joined our family, I wrote about him then. Of course I'm talking about Kirby, the green anole. He just might have been the most worthless pet you could own, but I've had other that would fight for the title. Lets look at the looser pets I have encountered in my 40 plus years.

1. Green anole. First off, it's a small lizard, so I'm always worried he will get out and crawl into something that we can't find him in, and then die and put out way more smell than the size of his body would suggest. He eats crickets, live crickets, which you have to keep in a cage, also inside your house. The possibility of the crickets getting out is a scary prospect as well, they might breed and then we have an infestation. Probably the worst thing about the anole is, they don't like to be handled. That means, he stays in the cage like a fish. The only time we actually touched him, was when we cleaned his cage, and he would flip out, and change color to try and hide. He appeared to be breathing so hard that his little lungs would explode. The only good thing was when we would feed him, if we could stand perfectly still for about 10 minutes, he would then eat the cricket, which was fun to watch. Basically a boring pet.

2. Fish. Do we really have to discuss this? I mean, the tank looks good and some of the fish look cool, but it is a pain in the ass to clean, keep the chemicals right and try to keep the fish from eating each other. I had a piranha that I thought would be soooo cool. I was wrong. He wouldn't eat if I was within a 5 mile radius. I tried everything, but no go. With the crickets and the piranha, I think I have a Mutual of Omaha thing going on.

3. Hermit crab. OK, they do no tricks and they bite. They don't eat live things and when they come out of their shell, they are hideous. You can't really hold them, but if you do, they go into their shell and you never see them.

4. Hamsters. These, on the surface, seem to be good pets. I mean, they are furry, they can do things that are semi interesting to watch, you can hold them, they stuff huge amounts of food in their cheeks and sometimes they do flips on their little running wheel. If you total all that up, seems like you have a winner, but lets look at the other side. The worst thing is, they bite. In fact, they make the hermit crab seem like a slug in comparison. I had tons of hamsters, mainly because they have the life span of a week and a half, and since you have $2000 invested in a habitrail that covers your entire room, just giving up on the species as a pet is out of the question. So you buy animal after animal after animal and before you know it, your backyard in a pet cemetery that would give Arlington National Cemetery a run for its money on the number of tombstones. The scariest thing is, they are like little prisoners and they are constantly trying to escape. They gnaw holes in the end of the dead end tubes and escape. I spent everyday after school inspecting all of the tubes and houses, looking for the hidden escape hatch that was in progress. I'm just glad they didn't have the ability to make shanks or I may never have been able to write this blog. They would have snuffed me out in my sleep on one of their jail breaks. I woke up one night and one of the escapees was crawling on my chest. Looking back, I know how close I was to death, gives me the shivers.

The boys have all ready asked for a new pet, but dad is putting on the breaks. I need to get over this loss before I try to move on. You just can't replace a beloved pet, by just bringing in someone new. So if we just went out and picked up, say, a dog, would that make the pain go away? I guess it would.