Out of Kilter by Ken Carpenter presents:
Our disturbing passion for freaky pets has no limits
July 3, 2003
Human beings are born with the compulsion to create a pet out of anything they can get their hands on. The Pet Rock craze was proof of that. They were a result of another human compulsion, the drive to make a buck without working for it.
There is no creature so murderous or disgusting that somebody won’t try to tame it or at least contain it for ogling purposes. Skunks, scorpions, spiders, snakes, rats, bats, apes wearing hats, there is nothing sacred in the pet world.
I am not immune to this syndrome either, for I have a little known and unexplainable urge to own a family of dung beetles. It doesn’t seem likely that my slightly unhinged desire will ever be fulfilled, but you never know. They may be in every pet store in America by this time next year.
While they did not quite qualify as pets, my childhood cronies and I used to get a lot of mileage out of a quart jar full of bugs. Of course, our goal was not to tame them, but to mix together the different species that were most likely to engage in brutal warfare. Yes, it was bloodthirsty, but we were boys, so it did not seem out of the ordinary.
My youngest brother had poor luck with off the wall pets. He once got a Horney toad for a science project and while it wasn’t exactly Mr. Personality it was cool in a prehistoric kind of way. One day it buried itself in the sand and did not move for a couple of months.
We incorrectly assumed that he had committed suicide, and the gruesome decision was made to embalm him in a jar of formaldehyde. It turns out that poor Horney was just hibernating, because he came wide awake for about one second when he hit the juice. Oops, sorry old boy.
Another time my brother got a white rat, a friendly little fellow who had one physical attribute that could not be ignored. Ahem, how do I explain this delicately? Let’s just say, if he was walking on the beach footprints wouldn’t be the only tracts let in the sand when he passed by. I don’t know if all rats are like that because I haven’t socialized with any since that time, but I suspect he was either deformed or his dad was a terrier.
He came to a bad end as well, something to do with a hideous disease he caught out of the blue.
My sister also had a strange experience with an oddball pet. Hers was a small lobster that she thought would be an interesting addition to her saltwater fish tank. It was indeed interesting, among other things.
It crawled around for a while doing lobster things, then started climbing up the side of the tank. When it reached the top, it immediately launched itself toward the opposite side of the tank bottom, both claws snapping fiercely as it motored through the water.
The other inhabitants of the tank had grown accustomed to a peaceful existence, so they had no reason to fear the pugnacious stranger as it hurtled past them. That was OK with Red, for he happily and skillfully took bites out of every expensive fish he passed.
His stay was a short one, for not too long after decimating the local populace, he escaped from the tank and became cat food. His untimely demise was not the cause of any weepy displays of grief.
I could go on forever about strange pets, but I am feeling a bit melancholy about a recent loss of my own.
A mosquito eater named Sid had been living in my bathroom for a few days, hanging around waiting for a victim.
He had a poor sense of timing though, for he flew into the spray during my shower this morning and was washed down the drain.
I kinda miss him, but I’ll get over it.
In truth, a rock on the edge of the tub might just be as sociable as Sid was.
