Critters

My family has a long, long history of weird pets.  My great-grandmother had a rooster she called Crooked Toes.  And a pet squirrel.  My grandmother had a pet butterfly named Adam that lived in her dining room.  She would buy a bouquet of fresh flowers for it every few days.  We had our own fair share of odd pets growing up.

The first pet I remember was Whiskers.  She was stray cat that had kittens and would bring us dead birds and mice.  That's about all I remember because she was trapped and killed by neighbors when I was about four.  Oh, and we had two kittens we found in a dumpster around that time because I remember them nursing with the other smaller kittens.

Then there was Silky, named such by my sister because it had no hair on it's back.  Someone had thrown boiling water on it and it was burned off.  I don't remember what happened to Silky.  Trixie was our dog who ate through an electric typewriter cord and electrocuted herself.  Twice.  We ended up giving her away to a police officer.  We had a pigeon that lived on a roll of carpet in our basement for awhile.

There was the newt who one day disappeared.  Time went on, we refinished the basement, and a few years later my brother calls up the stairs, "Uh, I think I found the newt."  On the floor.  The new floor.  Mummified.  Still haven't figured that one out yet. 

Blackie was our cat for about 15 years.  He was a stray and an adult cat when we took him in.  No idea how he lived that long, but he was mean and we were pretty sure he'd never die.  He would stealth yak in your shoe and you wouldn't find it until you put your foot in and felt cold, squishy, feline gastric contents.  My mom would leave a few dollars on the table for my brother's lunch money;  he would yak just on the bills.  One time he had a stroke and couldn't eat, couldn't jump, couldn't meow, and just walked in circles.  I accidentally stepped on his tale and he started meowing again.  He made a full recovery instantly after that.  Several more times he went near death only to recover again.  We were convinced he was immortal.  We eventually had to put him down when it looked (and smelled) like he was melting from the inside out. 

But by far the weirdest pet was one we perhaps had for the shortest amount of time. 

Two houses down lived a man named Jack.  He was in the military, lived alone, and died of a heart attack on his sofa under the front window.  The next man that moved in the house was also in the military, lived alone, and also died of a heart attack on his sofa under the front window.  But this is about Jack.

Jack loved his dog Cub.  The went everywhere together.  He built a thing on the back of his motorcycle so Cub could ride along.  When Jack died, the MPs that went in found Jack on the sofa with Cub next to him, head on his chest, waiting for him to wake up.  Jack's brother came to town to take care of his affairs and knocked on our door to ask if we'd take care of Cub.  My mother says the brother looked just like Jack and there was no way she could say no.  It was right around Christmas time, and she put Cub in the basement so he wouldn't get into anything.  Before she had a chance to tell my dad we got a dog, he opened the door only to be met with two yellow glowing eyes.  He screamed.

Anyway, we went out Christmas Eve and left Cub in the basement.  When we came back, he was out of the basement and in the living room.  The door opened outward, so it wasn't inconceivable that maybe it wasn't shut all the way and he pushed it open.  He was a big dog.  On Christmas we went out again, again leaving Cub in the basement, making sure the door was shut tight this time.

We we returned, the front door to the house was open.  The screen door was shut, but the heavy storm door was wide open.  Thinking we had been robbed, my dad went in to check it out.  Nothing was missing...except Cub.  The basement door again was open as was the storm door.  The storm door, however, opened inward and was locked.  We never saw Cub again.  We have no idea how he got out, but we think he went looking for Jack. 

I hope he found him.

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This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.

Comments

[SCY]

Thanks for stopping by my blog :)

You sound like you had a menagery growing up - we had our fair share of pets but cos we moved so often we mostly had doggies!

xxx

[Kath]

Dear Jenn, this post was great. I laughed out loud about the stealth yakking -- what a term! What a nasty habit!

And (playing catch-up again) I loved those pictures of the boys sleeping on the floor. I think you hit on something brilliant there.