Dog Down

It started, I think, with my grandfather.

He owned a pet store in Northeast Philadelphia. He sold monkeys, sharks, and chicks at Easter, as you would expect from any reputable pet seller. Some of the more mundane animals made it home with him. There were turtles. Hamsters. Dogs. A duck.

His mother was notorious for taking in stray animals. One such stray was an orphaned girl who ultimately became my grandmother. Fortunately, she wasn't the stray Great-grandmother singed with a flea bath.

Given this history, one may rightly assume that my childhood home was a menagerie. As is my home.

It began with my cat. Once upon a time, it was just Cat and me in my postage-stamp apartment. But one husband, two children, and a few mortgage refis later, Cat was ready to call it quits. Husband broke the news to our then-6-year-old daughter. Cat is dying, he explained. She doesn't have long.

Instead of tears, Daughter broke into a huge grin. "Can we get a new cat?" she asked, all smiles and bubbly excitement. Husband assured her that, yes, a new cat would happen. Someday. Undeterred from her mission of newfound feline love, Daughter pressed on.

"Can I name her?"

Husband gently suggested that maybe, to ease my grief, I should be the one to name her.

Delighted, Daughter ran to me. "Mommy!! Guess what?! Guess WHAT? Cat is dying!! We're going to get a new cat! And YOU get to name it!!"

I think she thought I was shedding tears of joy. She was wrong.

"Be honest," Husband said as he consoled me. "You have a list of people you'd rather see dead before Cat, right?"

Yes. Alphabetized. I still have it.

By bedtime, Daughter had decided that Cat simply couldn't die without a birthday party. Naturally, we'd need cake. I don't like cake. My cat is dying. I'm getting one of those chocolate chip cookie cakes you order at the mall.

At the Nestle Toll House Cafe, I gave my order to the nice teenaged boy working the counter. Round. Twelve inches. It will say "Happy Sweet 16" in pink (Daughter's favorite color) and white frosting.

Twenty minutes later, I'm staring at this gorgeous cookie cake. The kind boy enthusiastically explains his rationale for the multitude of delicious icing flowers, frills, swirls. I, perhaps, am not at my best.

"Dude, it's for a cat."

And as the entire counter snickers, he assures me that I'm "cool" because, you know, his mom and aunt post pics on Facebook of their cat parties all the time.

By the time 2015 dawned, I had added to our family a guinea pig, a dog, a crayfish (don't ask), and two goldfish - one gold, one silver. The children are a delight to watch with our fur (scale, claw) kids. Son writes letters to his fish, declaring his love, true and undying. There's pictures of him around their tank so they don't miss him during their cruelly enforced separation during school hours. 

One night, clearly with much thought and deliberation, Crayfish died. At bedtime. On Valentine's Day. We had to defrost the February ground with boiling water in order to hold a proper burial.

Our streak didn't stop there. One day this summer, Dog began to drag her paw, and that was it. Terminal cancer. We had adopted her late in her life. My vet, having known me since I was a child, warned me when I adopted her. I get very attached. I should be prepared.

I was not prepared. Neither, I think, was Husband. Driving home from the vet that day, he declared the general suckiness of the situation. He's German; that's the emotional equivalent of a nervous breakdown in other cultures.

So on that awful night, we sat the children down to explain that Dog was dying. That discussion went  as badly as you are imagining.

They settled down as children do and our evening went on. They picked stories for bedtime, I picked a bottle of wine for after bedtime. We started baths, fed the animals. Son couldn't see Silver in his tank. Nothing new, so I sent Son off to his bath and I went off to check the fish tank. Silver is small. He's probably in his little fish house again and nooooo. No. NO!

Silver was floating. Upside down. Clearly, horribly dead.

Husband and I quickly hatched a plan. He'll distract Son with The Bedtime Routine. I will run to the pet store and get a new Silver.

And that was when Daughter decided that it had been awhile since she visited Son's fish. Tonight, she needed to rectify it. Goldfish, apparently, are touchy about social neglect.

I hauled her into her bubble gum pink bedroom. "Look, Silver is dead. Your brother CANNOT know. CANNOT. I'm going to the pet store to replace him."

Daughter (see Cast of Characters here) studies me a moment. "Do you really think you're going to pull this off?"

I have no time for this conversation. The pet store closes soon, and that glass of wine is beckoning more strongly with each pet's demise.  "Your uncle and I replaced your cousin's hamster when she was five. She's seventeen. She still doesn't know."

"OK," she concedes. "You have my support. I won't tell."

So with her blessing properly given to my plan, I replace Silver 1 with Silver 2, who is significantly, noticeably larger than his predecessor. Now Husband and Daughter are both skeptical.

"You will never pull this off," they say.

I totally pull it off.

In the morning, Son declares that Silver is HUGE.

And with supreme pride, he declares "It's because I'm a great pet owner."

The sign Son made when Dog passed. It says, "Make a live forever potion that can make our pets come back."

So after Dog and Silver passed, the remainder of the summer went on uneventfully.

But this week Guinea Pig stopped eating. Husband suggests that maybe he needs new food. So off I go to the pet store again. There's a huge selection of guinea pig food. One even encourages foraging.

I don't think Guinea Pig will take up foraging at this late point in his life. And of course it doesn't matter anyway because GP still isn't eating. He's not the same, I implore to Husband. He's listless. He doesn't chirp and squeal like he used to. When I look in his eyes it's like there's a different person in there.

"Maybe he's been possessed," Husband quips, "by The Closet Monster."

If anybody needs me, I'll be in the corner with my wine.


Wendi's Binge of the Week
Fox's Gotham is a fun, new take on the Caped Crusader's back story. Focusing on the future Commissioner Gordon (the delicious Ben McKenzie), Gotham is by turns cleverly anachronistic, campy, and even a bit procedural. Donal Logue is dry and witty as Gordon's partner, and Robin Lord Taylor is perhaps the greatest Penguin ever. Season 1 is worth watching for Jada Pinkett Smith's Fish Mooney alone. Season 2 is only two episodes in! (See full episodes at fox.com).