After the debacle with Francis, the demented bunny, our reprieve from pet ownership lasted several years. Then it started up again. “Dad, can we get another pet?”
“Absolutely not!” I said.
“Why not?” they whined.
“Because I said so!”
Thinking that would be the end of it was a mistake on my part. Under relentless pressure from our three water torture specialists....drip, drip, drip, drip, drip...I cracked again.
“Dad, can we pleeease get another pet? We promise to do all the work! We’ll feed it and clean up after it! We promise! We promise! Come on, Dad! Pleeeeease?”
In the end, just to get them to stop whining, I took them down to Pet Smart to look for a new pet. I wanted something that wouldn’t chew through computer cords. Something that didn’t smell or need to be taken for walks. The young girl that was helping us took us over to the bird section. “Parakeets make great pets,” she said. “They are super smart. They can learn to mimic certain words. You can take them out of their cage and they’ll sit on your finger or on your shoulder. And they’re not messy!”
I should have been suspicious about this over-the-top sales pitch, but I bought it hook, line, sinker...and worm. In the end, turns out that not one thing she told me was true. They were all lies! Lies, I tell you!
I ended up buying not one, but two parakeets on her recommendation. “They’ll be much happier if they’re together,” she said.
I bought a cage in which to keep them and a stand on which to hang the cage. We stocked up on some bird seed and headed home with two new family members. The kids decided to name their new pets Michael and Jordan. Apologies to the G.O.A.T. for what would eventually transpire.
When we got home, we set the cage up on the stand on a wood floor in the kitchen/dining area. The kids were super excited to take the birds out and play with them. They had visions, I’m sure, of Michael and Jordan sitting on their shoulders carrying on full conversations. “Polly want a cracker?” Rachel said in a sing-songy voice? “Polly want a cracker?”
She reached into the cage to grab one of the birds. Not sure if it was M or J, but that’s beside the point. When she reached for the bird, it pecked her hard on the back of the hand. Undaunted, she got hold of it and pulled it out of the cage. It sat on her open hand for about a second and then took flight. The bird flew straight at the window at the far side of the room, thinking that it could escape into the Great Wide Open. THUNK! It hit the window at full speed and dropped to the floor, momentarily stunned. With the kids distracted, the other bird hopped to the door of the cage and took the same flight path, straight into the window. THUNK! The kids seemed a little disturbed by this wanton show of ungratefulness. They hustled across the room to see if the birds were okay. Each bird shook its head as if to clear the cobwebs. The kids picked them up and put them back in the cage. With a goodly supply of bird seed in their feeders, they got busy eating. The next morning there was a circle of shells on the floor under the cage about four feet in diameter. I grabbed a broom and swept up the mess.
This cycle repeated itself day after day for weeks on end. The birds never once sat still on a shoulder or outstretched finger. The birds never once learned to mimic a single word. Clearly, these two characters had floated up from the shallow end of the avian gene pool. Worst of all, they left a big mess on the floor every single day. A mess that dear ol’ dad cleaned up. As predicted, the kids soon lost interest in their new pets.
During Thanksgiving break that fall, we headed down to Lisa’s parents’ home in Fort Atkinson like we did each year. After our Thursday feast, I would head back to Madison on Friday by myself. I would buy our Christmas tree and get it set up for decorating on Sunday night. That Friday when I walked into the house dragging a 14 ft. Frazier fir that cost me $250, I was already slightly aggravated. Then I saw the birds...and the mess under their cage. My aggravation doubled. I lugged the tree into the family room and got it situated in its stand. Then, with a firm sense of purpose, I walked over to the bird cage, lifted it from the stand and walked out to the car. I put the cage in the front seat, backed out of the garage and headed back to Pet Smart. It was cold: 31 degrees, to be exact. When I got to the store, I took the cage inside and walked to the checkout area. Coincidentally, the girl who sold me the birds three months earlier was working the register. I walked up, put the cage on her check-out table and said, “I want to return these birds.”
She looked surprised. She said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t take birds back once they’re sold.”
“Oh, really? Well, then I’m going to take them outside and let them go.”
Her eyes widened. “Well, you can’t do that,” she said. “It’s below zero. If you let them go, they’ll probably freeze to death.”
“Exactly.”
I wasn’t trying to be mean, and I didn’t want to go into a long explanation about the bill of goods she had sold me when I bought them, but she could tell I was dead serious.
Finally she said, “Okay, I guess we can make an exception this time,” and took the cage from me.
I got in my car and drove back home. I went inside, got a broom and swept up the mess they had left. I dismantled the stand and put it in the garage next to the garbage bins.
Lisa and the kids got home the next afternoon. I was worried about what they would say. They saw the tree in the family room and shouted their approval. “That’s a beautiful tree, Dad!”
We finished out the Thanksgiving weekend with a flurry of decorating. Not a peep (no pun intended) was uttered about Michael and Jordan being M.I.A. A full two weeks later, and I’m not making this up, one of the kids looked at me and said, “Hey, Dad, what happened to our birds?”
Two weeks! They hadn’t noticed their beloved feathered friends had gone missing. Ample proof as to how invested they were in the care and feeding of their non-speaking, window-smashing, mess-making pets. At that point, I made a solemn vow to myself: never again would I be swayed by the emotional pleas of our children to get them a pet.
My vow lasted all of one year. Then the movie My Dog Skip made its debut in the fall of 2000. I’ll forever rue the day we took our youngest son Kyle to see that flick.
This is the story of all pets and parents! Every parent who is thinking of caving in to the Pet Requests of their kiddos should read these 2 articles first! Fun to read that we have all had similar experiences! Just be glad they didn’t want a Feret!!!! 😆. Great writing!!