Pet Names

My experience with my first pet came about when my parents decided to introduce me to the subject of responsibility. After asking incessantly for a dog, my parents offered me their next best offer- which was to have some fish.  We went to a supermarket pet section and I picked out two beautiful pets. They were small and transparent fish with neon stripes running down their spines- one pink, one green. 





I named them Timothy and Alex and they lasted for about a week before an accidental overfeeding led to their passing. I think I also convinced myself that they needed to live in salt water to survive… so me adding some table salt may have not helped the situation.





“LIVE!”


I was devastated, and knew that the only way to overcome my sorrow was to fill the emotional void with more fish. The next pair of pets were larger goldfish. I chose a generic gold goldfish, and another creamy white and orange one.





I named them Timothy and Alex. Again. Reoccuring names were something that my brother and I both had problems with. His first fish was a black monstrosity with huge eyes named Herman. After Herman died, there came Herman II, Herman Strikes Back, and finally Herman III. They were all identical.





After a while, my new goldfish were bored and lonely so I got some kind of crustacean crab-like creature that was supposed to help in keeping the tank clean. I figured that adding a new aquatic friend would be the solution for a happy community.  After a week or so I was introduced the horrors of the animal kingdom. As the fish would swim close to the bottom, the crab would reach out a claw and grab the tail of the fish. The fish would then panic and drag the crab around like an amusement park ride until ultimately the crab would just rip out a chunk of tail for dinner.





The fish were damaged both on the surface on a very deep emotional level.





All three of them died of what was assumed was an abundance of stress not too long afterward.
After Eric and I had seen the lifespan of one too many fish, we asked our parents to stop the emotional pain of aquatic slaughter and for an upgrade to rodents. After seeing how well we handled fish, I can see now where their apprehension may have come from.


So when we asked “CAN WE GET GERBILS??”
They said:





But Eric and I heard:





Never say “maybe” to a kid. All they’ll hear is “I swear on everything, including my love for you, that this will definitely happen. I promise.”


And so after we had convinced our parents that we would die of heartbreak if we didn’t get gerbils, our wishes came true. We were elated, we knew having a gerbil was as close as we were ever going to get to having a dog. We chose our pets carefully and brought them home in cardboard  boxes. Eric and I named the gerbils Timothy and Resseafurd. I think you can guess who named who.




And so began years of friendship with our rodent friends. We would make obstacle courses, mazes, and costumes. We developed identities for the gerbils over time. Timothy was given the perceived personality of a neurotic, effeminate librarian while Reeseafurd was a tactless, obese American aristocrat, very much like William Taft.


Eric had a favorite game in which he would take a large down pillow and punch a crater into the center of it. He would then put Reeseafurd into the crater and hit the sides of the pillow as to make a catapult that would send the poor guy flying vertically into the air and then straight back down onto the pillow. Eric was convinced that his gerbil loved this game.






Near the end of their lives they began to show signs of serious rodent senility. Timothy began to eat Reeseafurd alive starting with the ears. We weren’t sure how long they were going to go without killing each other, however Reeseafurd won out in the end outliving Timothy nearly a year.  


If there is a moral to any of this, it would be that giving your child a pet usually means that you are going to have to take care of that pet for them in order to maintain their emotional stability.