Most of my pet stories happen with a specific group of friendsWhile these girls mean well, they have bad luck with animals. They had a hamster, Niobe. Eventually, Niobe died, as hamsters tend to do. So the girls, being the super-religious type, invited me to Niobe's funeral. We were to bury her under a palm tree by our lake. (We figured being in a hole in the ground for eternity *IS* hamster heaven.) The main owner of the hamster, Allie, has a small cup of rose petals she lights on fire as incense, and proceeds to dump the lit rose petals into the hole with the hamster corpse. A few moments of bowed heads and quiet prayer, and I smell something quite rank. The burning rose petals had set the dead hamster on fire. She runs down to the lake to collect water to put the burning hamster; of course this lake is mostly anaerobic, and smells like shit. So now we have the smell of rotten eggs and dead burning hamster, and I unfortunately get hit with a case of the giggles. Allie's sister announces we're having more fun with Niobe dead than alive, and maybe we should dig her back up to keep playing.
Episode #2 occurs when we're taking a friend around for her birthday. One stop is the pet store, where the girls pick up a Siamese fighting fish in a little cup. We then go to a mall a good half hour away. They put the cup on top of the hand dryer; the cup falls and shatters. I scoop the fish up, and hold in my hands under running water in the sink until Allie goes to a restaurant and gets a cup of water to keep the fish in until we get home. So we're walking around the mall, and hear a sputtering sound from Allie. She, of course, had forgotten the cup of water had a fish in it, and started drinking, only remembering when the fish was in her mouth.
I used to have several tree frogs in a tank, and would buy them crickets every two weeks. One day I find the larger of my two frogs, Nitrogen, bloated and floating on the water portion. The stupid little fecker had eaten so many crickets he couldn't move. I had to pick he up and put him on dry land, and he couldn't move for the next two days until he's digested the bugs. Stupid little thing is still alive though, and amazingly friendly.
My mother's cat likes snakes. She goes out int he backyard and plays with them frequently. Now while Florida mostly has non-poisonous snakes, Kitty manages to find the poisonous ones and get bitten, requiring surgery to drain the resulting abscesses. Now, a few years after she's learned her lesson, I come home from uni with my new pets, two darling baby corn snakes. Kitty is both fascinated and terrified, particularly when the snakes are feeding. So we let her watch, she sits ont eh table with her legs tucked under her body so the snakes can get them. As she watches, I grab her tail, and bolts into another room.
I think that's pretty much it with the animal tricks, though I'm sure there are dozens I'm forgetting.
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Sun 19 Oct 2003, 5:29,
archived)
Episode #2 occurs when we're taking a friend around for her birthday. One stop is the pet store, where the girls pick up a Siamese fighting fish in a little cup. We then go to a mall a good half hour away. They put the cup on top of the hand dryer; the cup falls and shatters. I scoop the fish up, and hold in my hands under running water in the sink until Allie goes to a restaurant and gets a cup of water to keep the fish in until we get home. So we're walking around the mall, and hear a sputtering sound from Allie. She, of course, had forgotten the cup of water had a fish in it, and started drinking, only remembering when the fish was in her mouth.
I used to have several tree frogs in a tank, and would buy them crickets every two weeks. One day I find the larger of my two frogs, Nitrogen, bloated and floating on the water portion. The stupid little fecker had eaten so many crickets he couldn't move. I had to pick he up and put him on dry land, and he couldn't move for the next two days until he's digested the bugs. Stupid little thing is still alive though, and amazingly friendly.
My mother's cat likes snakes. She goes out int he backyard and plays with them frequently. Now while Florida mostly has non-poisonous snakes, Kitty manages to find the poisonous ones and get bitten, requiring surgery to drain the resulting abscesses. Now, a few years after she's learned her lesson, I come home from uni with my new pets, two darling baby corn snakes. Kitty is both fascinated and terrified, particularly when the snakes are feeding. So we let her watch, she sits ont eh table with her legs tucked under her body so the snakes can get them. As she watches, I grab her tail, and bolts into another room.
I think that's pretty much it with the animal tricks, though I'm sure there are dozens I'm forgetting.