Pets – Let's Get Out of Here

I hadn’t planned on sharing the 650 square feet of space I called home. Andrew and I had reached the point in our dating life where he kept a spare toothbrush at my place and I had cleared out a shelf in my closet for him. I could barely fit all my shoes in the closet, so this was a sacrifice on my part.

Dovey didn’t move into the apartment. She and her mate Lovey took over the hanging basket on the balcony. When they first showed up, they strutted around cooing at the potted plants. They reminded me of an old married couple scouting out real estate, sashaying around wing to wing, nodding their little bird heads and inspecting the soffit for dry rot.

“They’re looking for a spot to nest,” Andrew warned me as I commented on how sweet they were.

“If they’re moving in, I guess I should name them,” I replied.

When I first settled in my apartment, I decided against owning a dog or a cat. The complex required one fourth of my salary for a pet deposit. And the additional pet fee with each rent payment would mean I might have to give up bathing, since I wouldn’t be able to afford the water bill while paying for a pet. I didn’t plan on adding any animals to my household, but a pair of mourning doves decided my place fit them just fine.

I discovered my home had passed the mourning dove inspection and Dovey had moved in when I went to water my petunias the next day. Even standing on tiptoe I couldn’t see past the flowers blooming in the pot, but with the first stream of cold water she burst forth, scattering blooms and whistling bird curses.

She perched on the gutter above my landing to shake off the water droplets, then roosted there to fix me with the stink eye. I took this opportunity to peek in the basket. A single white egg lay cushioned in a mashed down mat of limp petunias. Two twigs tossed to the side of the egg and some dried grass blades stuck on the edge of the basket made up what passed for a nest.

When I described the nest to Andrew, he told me that doves are bad builders. Dove are the trailer trash of the feathered world, living in what amounts to a tornado-ravaged mobile home.

“They’ll set up anywhere, and patch together the bare minimum for a nest. Most of the eggs drop right out.”

I was horrified, and glad Dovey had chosen the hanging basket for a nursery. After I apologized to the petunias for sacrificing them, I stopped watering the flowers.

Mornings I eased open the back door and announced my presence before I stepped out, so as not to startle the little bird.

“Okay, it’s just me. No reason to get scared, I’m coming out now.”

Sometimes a neighbor would pass by walking their dog, and give me a curious look as I stood there, poking my head out the door and warning the plants of my approach. I must have made an even odder sight a few days later, standing on a chair on the back porch and talking baby talk to the dead, wilted flowers in the hanging basket.

“Oh, what’s you got there? Is you got a baby?”

I would lean forward, toward the basket but not too close to the edge of the railing, since I am not known for my sense of balance.

Dovey puffed up and glared at me while trying to stuff the hatched chick back under her wing. I could understand why she tried to hide him. Every parent is proud of their child, but Baby looked like he was missing feathers from his scrawny neck. I did what most people do when confronted by someone else’s homely offspring — I lied and told Dovey what a cute chick she had hatched.

The first hatchling grew up and left the nest while I was out of town on a business trip. My neighbor Lisa kept me informed by text message. “B is out of the nest?! OMG! Cute!”

I was sad to have missed this baby’s first steps until Andrew reminded me most likely Dovey would be back. She returned, even though by this time the basket was bare dirt, with brown, withered stalks dropping off the sides. Dovey felt this was adequate, without adding twigs or grass to the nest inside.

This time there were two eggs, and I got to watch them from hatching to when they left the nest and spent three days stumbling around on my balcony like drunken sorority sisters. I read on the internet that dove fledglings “stay around hedges and bird feeders, begging for food from adults.” Sort of like human teenagers, I thought, hanging out in front of an open refrigerator and asking “What’s there to eat in here?”

After the second set of chicks moved on, I took down the hanging basket. I thought I had had enough of running a rookery, but Dovey had other plans. She and Lovey returned and placed a few dried blades of grass on top of an empty ceramic planter balanced at the top of a rickety wooden shelf on the corner of my porch and called it their new home.

“You will need to put that basket back up,” Andrew said.

Since I had already thrown away the old pot, there was only one thing to do. I went shopping, and returned with one of those coconut husk liners and an assortment of bright orange, artificial hibiscus flowers. Andrew and I lined the new basket with trimmings from the coconut fibers, carefully arranged the large fake flowers, and transferred the new nest to the balcony. This arrangement suited the happy couple, and soon after Dovey was raising another pair of chicks in the tropical atmosphere of the new pot.

Dovey left now and then, but she always came back to my balcony. She appeared to be satisfied sharing my porch. I was content too, living in a place where the fake flowers bloomed and I had room for most of my shoes, even if I had to share my closet space. At the end of summer Dovey took off for vacation. While she was gone, I planted a tiny American flag in the basket and added a small wooden plaque to welcome her return — one that read, “Home Sweet Home.”

I think our snails are up to some hanky panky. The other day they were tangled up in a position that looked like an illustration from the Kama Sutra for invertebrates. My boyfriend, Andrew, and I bought these two freshwater snails to keep company with a beta we had. The fish passed away after eight months, but two years later the snails are still sliding over the glass walls of the aquarium. Their home is a five gallon tank, complete with decorative gravel, waving plastic plants, a ceramic log, and a tiny pagoda if they happen to feel the need to meditate. They don’t do much except vacuum up the algae from the tank. It is a little like having a Roomba for a pet. The aquarium offers them both a regular bright electric light, and with the flick of switch, a mellow bluish purple tinted glow. Nerite snails are supposed to be asexual, but maybe it’s the blue light that puts them in the mood. Or maybe, like us, they just feel the need for a hug now and then.

Andrew and I occasionally discuss adding a pet to our home, but the logistics of adding an animal to our two bedroom apartment overwhelms us. Who would empty the litter box? Who would arrive home in time to walk the dog? Half a life time of caring for others has left me selfish and lazy in this, my carefree empty nest years. There are evenings where I can barely muster up the will to feed myself, let alone another living creature. I’ll resort to eating raw foods straight from the packaging, standing over the sink in order to catch any crumbs.

When my sons were young we had the usual procession of cats and dogs in our household. My younger son, Andy, was gifted once with a dwarf hamster. The hamster fit in my palm, and he had light apricot colored fur. His eyes were bright red, a satanic hue that should have warned us. We named him Mr. Nibbles, a deceptively cute name for a demon possessed rodent. Mr. Nibbles lay in wait, curled up and partially hidden by the soft wood shavings in the bottom of his cage, until an unlucky victim placed their hand inside. Then he would spring into action, leaping up and nipping any fingers within reach. He got me once in the web of skin between my thumb and index finger. I screamed and yanked my hand out of the cage with Mr. Nibbles still latched on. A flick of my wrist sent the little devil flying across the room to thud on the wall, his tiny legs splayed out like a cartoon character. I scooped him up, unconscious and unable to bite, and deposited him back in his cage.

He recovered from this trauma, but several weeks later we noticed that he had somehow lost an eye. Andy shrugged and renamed him Captain Nibbles, the pirate hamster. The lost eye did not improve his disposition. He continued to attack anyone unfortunate enough to be assigned cleaning or feeding duties, until one morning I found him belly up in his cage. I poked him with a straw first, to make sure he wasn’t just pretending to be dead. We held a funeral, complete with an insincere eulogy. I conjured up tears by remembering the pain inflicted by his sharp little teeth.

Not to be outdone by the hamster, my older son requested a Leopard Gecko for a pet. The little lizard was a light cream color with black and brown spots. He required a heat lamp to keep his glass tank at the perfect temperature. Like the hamster, he was palm sized, but unlike the hamster, the gecko was shy, and he would hide in his artificial rock cave whenever any of us tried to get a look at him. While we humans drank water from the tap, the gecko enjoyed bottled water from a battery operated bubbling fountain. The hamster, when I was brave enough to stick my hand in and feed him, ate tiny pellets we could buy almost anywhere. The gecko dined on live crickets. The crickets had to be purchased weekly, and I called local pet stores like a drug addict looking for a score. “Do you have the crickets?” I whispered into my phone at work. “Are they fresh?” I asked while I held my hand over the receiver. Before they could be fed to the gecko they had to be dusted with a special, vitamin fortified powder. I was grateful we didn’t have to cook them. Every time we opened the cardboard box in order to dump crickets into the vitamin dust shaker, several of the crickets would break free to take their chances in the wilds of my teenage son’s room. Our home was filled each evening with the musical chirping of crickets. The bugs that made it into the terrarium were stalked and consumed by the gecko with a frightening efficiency, which led me to ask Robert “How big does this thing grow?”

The gecko passed away unnoticed. We were used to seeing him immobile and hiding under the rock ledge in his cage, and it wasn’t until the crickets began multiplying joyously that we thought to examine the lizard. He had mummified in the dry heat of the terrarium, his little body stiffened and his mouth open in a sort of surprised smile.

I think sometimes that the perceived difficulties posed by pet ownership are not the fault of these creatures, but they are perhaps caused by some flaw, some deficiency in my own character. Pets provide companionship and love, and in return ask only that we care for their needs. It’s hard to imagine a more carefree pet than a fish that you only have to feed once or twice a week, but I can’t seem to work up the initiative to replace the beta. Andrew is lucky that he is self-sufficient, he can fetch his own meals and he very rarely requires a walk.

The snails continue their cleaning duties in an aquarium they have to themselves. I think they’re entertaining and lovely with their striped and spotted shells. They find their own dinner, and I only need to drop in a feeding tablet every month or so. They are perfect pets for this point in my life. Evenings I pour myself a glass of wine and light a candle or two, put Marvin Gaye on the stereo, turn on the blue light in the aquarium, and sit back to ignore the show.