Sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown must when Snoopy pretends to fly his doghouse around as a fighter pilot. I can totally relate to him when he smacks himself on the forehead and wails, "Good grief! Why can't I have a normal dog?"
I not only don't have a normal dog, I don't have a normal cat, or for that matter, any pets that actually act like they are supposed to. They find us and move in when we aren't looking. I've had them ring the doorbell and stroll in between my feet when I open the door. They've smuggled themselves in by hiding in Christmas trees. Once I found one using a screwdriver to pry open a window. He had built a ladder up to it and taped a cardboard sign up that read, "Suckers Here. You Don't Even Have To Work For Food."
Somewhere around the time my daughter was three years old, she and I were poking through a pet store when she found a cage full of tiny baby rats. She exclaimed, "OOOOOOOH Momma, look! Look how cuuuuuuuute! They are beeyooteeful!" I leaned down and peered in and did not see whatever she was looking at. All I saw was a teeming mass of bubonic plague with sharp teeth and beady little eyes. The sign said, "Baby Feeder Rats. " Feeder rats? What is that, you feed bad children to them? A pesky neighbor perhaps? As I thought about the possibilities, a teenage employee shuffled by and my daughter lit up, grabbed at his shirt and said, "Oh, mister! Your mousies are beyooteeful!"
He looked right at my girl and said, "Yeah, you can feed them to your snake. You got a snake?" and my daughter began screaming. Loudly. If you know my precious offspring, you know that the horror film industry already has their eye on her. I watched the boy run to the back room and heard the door lock. Then I turned around to find my three-year-old with her entire body draped across the cage sobbing. She was also praying.
"Dear God (hic), don't let these here mousies be (sniff) eaten. Amen."
Forget the mousies, I wanted to see the boy get eaten by the rats. I pried her off the cage and reached in as she begged me to let her hold one. I scooped one up and realized it must not be related to its plague- carrying brothers because it sat up like a squirrel in my palm, latched onto my thumb and began licking it. My daughter stopped crying long enough to sniffle, "Momma, he LIKES you!" I sighed. Sometimes they don't even need a screwdriver to get into our household.
So Daisy the rat came home. Daisy the rat was the darling of the family. Daisy the rat ate Cheetos while sitting on our shoulders. But like all of the pets that belong to us, we soon realized that Daisy had something wrong with her. It could have been something small, like only having three legs, or requiring a special diet, or being afraid of the dark and needing my husband to install an itty-bitty nightlight in her cage. But no. Turns out Daisy the rat had EPILEPSY. She would have seizures in her cage and bang against the sides and I would have to pull everything out until it was done. Then we'd give her a grape and she'd lick somebody's thumb until she fell back asleep.
One night I heard her banging around so I turned on the hall light and crept in there, hoping I wouldn't wake up my daughter. Poor Daisy was hitting the food dish so I reached in to move it and got too close. She bit me. I automatically yanked my hand out but unfortunately Daisy's teeth were still attached to my finger and she came out too. She went flying across the room and landed on my daughter's bed, who was still sleeping soundly. I was sputtering, "OW OW OW" and Daisy came out of the seizure and wobbled back across the floor towards me. She headed for my feet. I started hopping back and forth trying to avoid her. I hopped; she came closer. I feinted left; she zoomed in. I finally started screaming for my husband, who came in and saw me bouncing around with blood streaming from my hand and Daisy wobbling and circling my bare feet. He turned on the light and said, "Oh geez. Are you okay?" I started to answer him when I realized he was talking to THE RAT. She made a beeline for him. He picked her up, she licked his thumb, he put her back in her cage and my daughter never woke up.
I, on the other hand, was not current on tetanus, so I went to the doctor. Imagine having to explain that you were bitten by a rat. They were horrified. I said, "Oh no. It was my daughter's pet rat."
They all stared at me, and I realized that they were wondering what kind of mother would allow a child to own a rat that bites. So I said, "Oh wait, let me explain. The rat has epilepsy."
At this point the staff began whispering to each other and edging toward the phone. I gave up and shut my mouth, got my shot, and immediately changed medical offices.
Daisy the Cheeto- loving, thumb licking, flying rat lived with us (and was loved by us) for over two years, until she finally succumbed to a respiratory illness she had also carried since birth.
Not bad for snake food.
~Donna
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