Poor Unfortunate Souls

Smaller pets do not do well at our home. Cats and dogs survive because they are larger and can mostly take care of themselves. Our family loved the little ones too, just maybe too much.

One tragically loved pet was George, the finch. He was a cute little thing and the family loved to hear his happy little songs emanating throughout the house. As usual, the children loved to try and play with any pet and this included George. They would open his cage and talk to him and were delighted when they would get him to sit on their fingers.

Unfortunately, our children have an issue with doors. They have not been able to grasp the simple concept of closing them. Many a time would I walk around the corner and find a smiling child sitting on the porcelain throne or find the front door wide open on a 105-degree day as the electric meter ran mad and the air conditioner strained to keep up.

So, it was no surprise when we came home from a trip to find the door to George’s cage open with its occupant long gone. The children were frantic and I calmly told them to just fan out and search the house and we will no doubt find him. As I was searching the den I noticed our little house dog, Sassy, was on the couch chewing on what I thought was one of her chew toys. Then I remembered that she didn’t have any white feathered chew toys. I yelled at her to drop it and I picked up poor George and examined him. He head was covered with Sassy slobber but he was still alive. I gently smoothed his little feathers out and talked to him soothingly as I placed him back into his cage.

A vigil was kept at his cage side by the children for the rest of the evening but George had had enough and turned his little feet to the air and assumed room temperature. Another somber funeral service was held in the pet cemetery in our backyard concluding with a song set to the tune of “Poor Judd is Dead” from the musical Oklahoma!
“Poor George is dead, Sassy chewed on his head”

We had one parakeet who tried to give us a hint that we were not the best caretakers of pets. During dinner we heard it start squawking and we looked over to find the little thing trying to hang itself from the mini blind cord it had pulled into its cage. We gave that suicidal little bird away to Angie’s aunt before it could make another attempt at taking his own life.

Our boys loved lizards and our home became a temporary stop to many scaled little reptiles. One year Angie and I came back from a trip to Hawaii and gave Ben a carved coconut in the shape of a monkey head. He thought it would make a great conversation piece in his lizard cage. Little did we know that carved coconut monkey heads must be very offensive to lizards as the next day it appeared that all the occupants of the cage unanimously decided to commit mass suicide. Either that or all coconut heads from Hawaii are heavily treated with pesticides. Needless to say several more holes were made in the backyard in another somber ceremony.

At another time we had two large Cuban anole lizards. We had a custom made large display cage for them and they were very popular with all the kids and their friends. The boys would take them out of the cage and carry them around on their arms or shoulders much to the delight and/or horror of many a visitor to our home, depending on their tolerance of all things scaly.

The decision was made to add several smaller lizards to the enclosure for a variety of species. Unfortunately, we discovered that the favorite snack of the Cuban anole is anything smaller than itself. We added the little lizards and watched in horror as they were gobbled up one by one. The anoles soon fell ill and we had to put them in the freezer. This was at the suggestion of the local pet store. It appears they tell this to all their customers to help increase replacement lizard sales. Add two more holes to the backyard.

The next occupant of the enclosure was a large iguana by the name of Iggy. He had a great, but short, life. His days were spent under the sun lamp or riding around on the shoulders of Ben causing panic among any female type person that was visiting his master’s mother that day. Iggy met his own sad fate at the hands of Angie. Benjamin was back east for a month visiting family and Angie was in charge of Iggy’s care. She dutifully kept fresh lettuce and vegetables in his food bowl but forgot all about his need for water. She finally approached me and said:

“I don’t understand what Ben sees in that large lizard. All he does is sit on the tree branches and he never moves. He doesn’t even touch his food!”

On closer inspection I found that poor Iggy had expired quite a while ago and he was just stuck in frozen pose on the branches. We buried him out in the front yard as we had run out of room in the back.

There were many other reptiles that temporarily called our home theirs. “Speedy” the lizard, who could run very fast on his hind legs, hence the name, had the bad habit of escaping quite frequently so that pandemonium would again inhabit our home until the escapee was recaptured. It seemed that all the scaly critters we had the joy of knowing would find their way out of the safety of their enclosures and into the dangerous world of closets, the underside of furniture and the dark spaces of our home. I can’t recall a joy known greater to man than that of finding a snake coiled up in your shoes as you try to put them on.

We will now conclude this service with a rendition of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from the Little Mermaid. I found some open space in the back yard under the deck.