Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Opportunity, gentle reader, has recently provided me with a chance to adopt a five-month-old pet bunny. His current name is “Splotch.” While this is succinct, cute, and memorable, I will have to remedy it immediately. I’m torn between “Reginald Carotene” and “Bunnyzle in the Hizouse,” so I’ll just let the matter sit. Now, before you ridicule me for inability to nurture living creatures, I’ll have you know my past pets lived like kings. Flying kings, to be specific, kings that jumped out of skyscraper windows to see if they could soar to the heavens.

No, no, that was just a fib designed to tickle the Evil Bone, that bloodthirsty savagery inherent in us all. Hold on, I need to go kill an elf. There, done.

In truth, my sister and I have had pets of all kinds: fish, parakeets, guinea pigs, hamsters, a rabbit, a dog, a cat, an African pygmy hedgehog, even a robin, though that one eventually went to the preserve because of New York state law. We had grand success with each and every creature, the notable exception being the African pygmy hedgehog. “Sonic,” so went his good Christian name, decided to flout our veritable Noah’s Ark one fine evening. After shimmying out of his cage, he attempted to murder the hamster, slinked over to the guinea pig, and finally delivered his culinary coup de grace by getting up on his hind legs and pawing at the parakeets.

It was in this position that my mum caught him red-clawed, a frenzied ball of spikes dancing the Hungry Dance against a nightlight backdrop.

“Cat food,” the animal expo representative told us, “is all he needs.”

What could have been a Beatrix Potter tale gone hopelessly vile turned out for the best, as Sonic was thwarted by his foot-long height and lack of opposable thumbs. The birds were–and you’ll have to excuse me as I indulge in a grotesque pun–unflappable for the most part, the guinea pig shortly resumed her eating schedule, and the hamster lie burrowed deep in his woodchips. All the animals lived to a ripe old age, the notable exception again being Sonic. It just so happened, dear reader, that my parents gave Sonic away to a family friend, who then “gave him away to the zoo.”

“Which zoo?” I remember asking, faultlessly naive.

“The Bronx Zoo,” they replied. But I never did see Sonic at the Bronx Zoo.

How does this relate to Reginald Carotene? I haven’t the foggiest idea. The End.