Don�t even dare to tell me about the �evils� of pets!
February 03, 2004 ~ 7:10 p.m.
Saturday morning, at the weekend-ly winsome time of 8:45, the wife woke me up and asked me to come and have a look at Luna, one of our two pet rats. After half-a-minute�s observation, I had to conclude that her quality of life was virtually nil. Not only was she likely in physical pain, with a rapidly growing tumor on the left side of her waist, but also mentally incapacitated by her brain tumor. Of course, we had been anticipating this awful circumstance. She looked lost, sitting on the bottom of the two-tier cage�totally senile. I agreed that the job needed to be done. To euthanize her, that is.
We rushed her into the veterinary center and had the vet on call give her an injection of a strong tranquilizer before giving her the lethal shot. As Luna drifted into la-la land, via the tranquilizer, with her eyes wide open, I laughed softly at the way she flopped forwards and backwards, just like a Raggedy-Ann doll.
�I�m so sorry to laugh,� I quickly explained to my wife, and to Luna herself. �If I didn�t laugh at this, I�d fall on the floor, bawling, like a little brat who�s just lost a game of checkers.� I meant every word of it too. It was that close. I looked at the animal we�ve loved and taken care of since the summer of 2002, in a coma-like drug stupor, and determined that it is only the dark, gritty sense of humor that I am capable of possessing, and which keeps me upright, during painfully horrific moments such as this.
Then the vet came back to administer the lethal substance straight into her heart. When he left, and we watched Luna drift off into the heavens to join her sister Stella, the wife said, �I really think we need to give ourselves a break from keeping rats. This is so punishing.�
�I don�t know,� I said. I was crying now, my black sense of humor having abandoned me. I struggled to finish my train of thought. �It�s times like this when you realize that you�re very much still alive, that you still feel, that society hasn�t succeeded into turning you into a robot.�
I declared all that in a whisper; it was all I could manage through my heavy breathing and tears. We may have to discover all that the hard way, but we discover it nonetheless. Besides, if our lone remaining rat Sky gets too depressed on her own, we will get her another cagemate: A baby rat to bring up, to watch bounce around the living room, to watch Sky groom and nurture�and for us to LOVE. That, folks, is what this pet-owning game is all about, after all. If you have any measure of intelligence, then you already know this.
Animals enrich our lives so much that it�s not to be sneezed at. Whether it�s dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, lizards or goldfish that you own, your blood pressure goes down and the levels of serotonin to your brain rise every time you feed them, pet them, and get recognition and love from these creatures, however they�re able to express it. Our preferred animal�the domesticated rat�expresses it by licking your fingers, popping up on your shoulder from out of nowhere and kissing you on the cheek, by begging to be let out of their cage the moment you arrive home from work, and by acting all happy, bouncy and playful at your attendance. Your very presence in their precious little lives is considered not just a luxury, but an irreplaceable pleasure and a necessity.
It does not get much better than this. Try getting this much emotional mileage from a random human being. I don�t care what some dickheads have to say.
Luna
Luna loved helping herself to her papa�s wine. (For those of you alarmed by these photos�don�t be. Alcohol, especially in the form of red wine, is as beneficial to rats as it is to humans, if taken with moderation. I never let Luna, or any rat, have more than five sips of the stuff.)
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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