I've always avoided having pets. Walking a dog? Are you kidding me - I'd rather pound nails into my skull than do that every morning. Cats? Who thought those up? They don't even like people, and they do their duty in a box. But a couple years ago I got tricked into building a fish pond in my back yard, basically as a replacement for a more standard landscape decoration like a bush or a weed. I didn't know it at the time, but this started my hellish descent into being over-run with pets.
As pets go, the pond fish are great. They live outside. They are silent. They eat whatever crap I throw in the water. They occassionally get eaten by a raccoon or giant bird, but they don't complain about it. Basically, its like having pets except they never hassle you.
Recently one of my kids found a turtle had taken up residence in our pond. Where exactly this turtle came from, is beyond me. Spontaneous generation? Immaculate conception? Who knows. But of course the kid thought this was the greatest thing ever, to have a turtle to keep our fish company. My only thoughts were...that damn thing is gonna rip a hole in the pond liner and flood me out. So of course I solutioned this by telling the kid we would need to rub out Mr. Turtle, which surprisingly, she did not take well at all. So Mr. Turtle took up residence in a bucket in my house.
Kid #2 was of course enraged that kid #3 had been permitted to have a pet. So to shut her up, I agreed to a hamster. I figured that's pretty painless, its basically the same as a mouse that sneaks into your house for free, except the pet store calls it a Panda Bear or Speckled Bear or some such cutesy name and charges you $20 for it.
So now I have fish, a turtle, and a hamster, and there's still one petless kid left. We have a turtle tank, a hamster cage (who knew they made leashes for hamsters?), and all sorts of weird foods to feed them (Petco says turtles love dried worms). I plan to bargain with kid #1 - your choice baby, college or a pet. Pick the one you want more...
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