Our Pets - 3 Cautionary "Tails"

I have often heard that couples get puppies to prepare themselves for having children. If this concept is at all relevant to child-rearing, Garren and I will likely end up with children that will leave people wondering if they had running microwaves next to their cribs in their formative years.

Our first foray into pet ownership was our dog, Cash. He is a black lab and is named after Johnny Cash because he's "The Man In Black". I thought it was really clever at the time but naming him after an alcoholic and drug addict whose most famous portrait involves him flipping the bird, I realized it was a bit more appropriatethan I'd care to think about . We bought him 2 days before moving into a one bedroom apartment which is a thought you should keep in mind while I try to convince you that Cash is the retard in this equation. A lesson that I learned during this process is that you should pick a dog like you would pick a potential human mate. First of all, don't discover them on Craig's List. Second, you probably shouldn't pick the last one in the litter. Third, if someone hands them to you by the scruff of their neck from the trunk of a car, you should probably run. Well... call The Humane Society/police and THEN run. But, Garren wanted a puppy and I can't really say no to a baby animal.

Cash's head is much smaller than his body, proportionately. He's racist, so we can't really take him anywhere without looking like a couple of white supremacists. This probably comes from his 9-week upbringing in Kelso, but try explaining that to a large black gentleman who has been observing Cash kindly regarding the white people in the park and then going apeshit upon his approach... It's very awkward. Whenever he's on a leash, which he HATES, he gets what we call "crazy eyes" which involves him pretty much showing you as much of the whites of his eyes as possible while barking. It causes little children to cringe away from him in fear which is probably for the best as he hates children. He hates getting pets, he'd rather run past you at a high rate of speed and trip you on the way to the kitchen. He is, however, friendly in his own way - but once he gets within your physical range he just has no idea what to do. To say that he has intimacy issues is putting it mildly. He's like the guy that likes you but just fumbles it on the 1 yard line. And by "fumble" I mean slobbers on you, jumps on you, and in Garren's case, gives you a wrestling-related concussion resulting in a rather costly hospital bill. He's a charmer. I sometimes think that we should have gone with our friend Michelle's name suggestion: "ShitFuck".

That brings us to our second animal, a cat. This was our only animal that came with a name (of course we ended up changing it.) A tip for you: don't take in a cat just because your mom's psycho lesbian co-worker comes crying to you about said cat crying in her yard in the snow. She couldn't keep him but named him "Mr. Tutters" - because he makes a rattling, cooing, racoon-like noise when he purrs. We, of course, took him in and named him Capone - though a friend begged us to name him "Harry Twatter". Capone's interests include playing with his own shit, sleeping, attempting to eat any plastic bag he can find and ripping up the carpet. He also enjoys torturing Garren. Generally this includes pressing his cold, wet nose against Garren's lip while he's sleeping, "making biscuits" on his stomach after a large meal and stepping on his face with wet paws (the source of the moisture is ALWAYS suspect as he enjoys dipping his paws in the toilet.)

We then rescued a second cat. The feral cat trapping agency in our neighborhood does great stuff for cats, but decent marketing jobs on their wards are not their forte. However, we are the dumbasses that fell for Mia, our second cat (named after Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction... I don't know why...) It was explained to us that, although she was pretty, she had been rescued from a meth lab, hated people and was probably never going to be your normal affectionate house cat. But she looked like she had little kitty eyeliner, so I was sold. "But honey! She looks like David Bowie! Please oh please can we keep her?!" Plus, she immediately fell asleep on me and purred, so we HAD to keep her... right? This was the last time she would let me hold her without drawing blood. She spent three months under our beds hissing at us, coming out only to eat and grow to a size that would cause her to drag her belly on the ground by the time she was ready to come out and "grace us with her presence". (Read: contemptuously stare at us from across the room as though she is placing a hex on us.)

It's common knowledge that all animals end up liking one person in a couple better than the other. Cash and I do not get along. We did when he was a puppy and we probably will again when he is old and his joints are riddled with arthritis that will keep him from jumping on and then scratching my stomach. He is physically stronger than I am which leaves me no authority with him when it comes to discipline, so ours is a tense relationship. Mia tolerates me in brief spurts but generally shows her unbridled hatred for me by pissing in my laundry hamper and then stepping on me as I sleep. Capone is my buddy. He'll sleep with me and he sits on the back of the couch waiting to give me a hug when I get home. If Garren looks as though he's about to put the moves on me, Capone will climb into my lap and angrily kneed my boobs while glaring at him... it's pretty romantic.

It's clear that our methods for choosing animals will end in some ill-behaved accident child somewhere in our future - hopefully sometime after these psycho furr-creatures clear out. Any time anyone asks me when Garren and I intend to have children, I want to invite them to my home and introduce them to these three spawns of Satan. Most childless couples refer to their animals as their children, so if you never hear us referring to them as such, you will now know why not - we are the Michael and Dina Lohan of pet ownership. Our oldest is also behind bars as we speak... for dinner-time-crotch-nosing violations. So... I guess in that respect we have a leg up on the Lohans.