Menagerie

When my parents brought me home from the hospital, Mephisto was waiting in my crib. He was a mangy, long-haired cat that had turned up as an orphan kitten in the garbage can one day. "Geets" was always there to bite me, growl at me or demand food, right up until I left for college. Shortly thereafter, Geets, 18 years old, blind and deaf, fell asleep on the wheel of the car right before my mom left to take my brother to football practice. There was a funeral, with a custom-made casket inscribed with the word, "Mephisto." We have more pictures of the funeral (My brother with a shovel, my dad holding the casket, my brother looking sadly at the grave) than we have of my high school graduation. Geets was my family's first pet, but by no means the last.
In fact, there were also three dogs in the picture by the time I came along. They were Afghan hounds, and my dad already had them when he got married. They lived at my grandparents' house, roaming their fenced yard, occasionally escaping to terrorize the neighborhood. Ajax, Achilles and Apollo were well-known to all the neighbors. Of all the dogs, Apollo was my favorite. He was soft with black fur, and he was the most gentle. He would lean on me and encourage me to scratch his ears. All three dogs probably died of heart attacks, due to their rich diets. My grandpa would get so annoyed with the royal treatment the dogs got. Big Golda would fix him a big plate of breakfast. Then, just as he was about to take the first bite, she'd whisk the plate away, give it to the dogs and replace it with a "fresh plate." There were times when my grandpa would leave for work with an empty stomach. But the dogs never went hungry!

Besides Mephisto, there were three other cats named Cheerful, Bonus and L'Orange. (Named at about the time my dad thought it would be fun and easy to teach his kids French.) Cats must be heartier than dogs, because the four cats we had stuck around through several dogs and a short-lived chicken named Gerta who refused to lay eggs on Sunday.
There was Calaban, a huge Great Dane that my mom rescued from the pound at great expense about a month before he died of cancer. He was only with us long enough to survive a $500.00 surgery. Then there was Reddy, who followed my dad home from a jog one day. He was a spunky loner who took off into the night after eating two of our rabbits (Belle and Bonbon). Did you think the menagerie was limited to cats and dogs?

On the contrary, we had many other four-legged friends, as well as some with only two legs, but a lot of feathers. My favorite pet was a ferret I got in 8th grade. I loved that ferret. She was known for escaping into the heating ducts with our socks, which aggravated my parents to no end. I'm not even going to mention how I took her to school to help with my campaign speech for 8th grade officer. I didn't win.

My parents must have been either the nicest parents in the world or clinically insane. We had three peacocks that roamed outside at will. They roosted on the chimney, hopping up and down when the metal got hot. One day, I swear, a family of wild peacocks came and took them away. We never saw them again, but we still heard them crowing every morning. I even had an ant farm. Those little insects worked so hard...until my mom put the farm in the window so they could get some sun. I came home from school to find a hundred dry, shriveled-up ants dead in their tunnels. I had a hermit crab who bit my hand. When I screamed and tried to shake it off, half of the crab flew across the room. We didn't visit the pet store for awhile after that, but when we did, we came home with a chameleon who immediately went on a hunger strike and died 3 days later. It was the opposite of what happened when we bought two gerbils, both of whom were guaranteed to be boys. About three dozen baby gerbils later, my mom "took them into the mountains to let them live in the wild." By "mountians," she meant the side of the freeway. I'm sure they made a tasty snack for the first hawk that soared by. As karmic payback, Mom locked her car keys in the trunk when she got the gerbil cage out and had to walk all the way home.

After all the pet capers I went through as a kid, I have completely learned my lesson. My kids haven't had very many pets at all. Besides the hamster. And the second, look-alike hamster I bought after I left the cage door open. And the mice Santa brought. And all the fish. Oh, and the baby ducks we got for Easter one year (they live at Barnes Park now.) And the chicks we got the next year. (Mandy the cat ate most of them.) But right now, we have a very reasonable household. Only one dog. And two cats. And a very smart and friendly guinea pig.

Last week, I got a call from the school. It was Golda. Our dog, Star, had walked over to the school. She had never been inside the school before, but she walked in and found Golda's classroom and trotted right over to her desk. The whole class was in an uproar. See, that's the kind of thing only a trusty dog will do.

I don't know what kind of life lessons my kids will learn from having pets, if any. What I learned as a kid living in a menagerie was that my parents were awesome! They were always up for a new adventure, up to and including their two relatively new Afghan hounds. When my mom surprised my dad with the two furry puppies for Christmas, he got all teary-eyed. Now he brings them over to visit the kids, and that's a whole other story!