Sunny

Mike's post last week about got me thinking about some of my old pets. My family is big of animals, so growing up we always had something crawling around our house. The first pet I can remember was my parents cat Kitty-Witty. Kitty-Witty pre-dated my sister and I , so by the time I met her she was an old lady. She did a lot of lurking. Now that I think about it, she was less of a "pet" and more of a "presence" in our household (not much fun). So I don't count her as my first pet.

We had a pet duck named Daffy for a few days--but he doesn't really count either because we had to give him up.

I guess I consider our first dog Cherokee to be my first "real" pet.

We got Cherokee because my parents were worried my sister and I were afraid of dogs. So to cure this fear they decided to get us one. While I appreciate their intentions, I shudder to think what they'd have done if they'd know that we feared clowns MUCH more than we feared dogs. I can almost see it, we'd have just come home from school...our parents sit us down...a leering clowning "honking" his nose in the corner of the room.

My father would have said something like:

"Jason, Amber...we have something for you! His name is Bubbles and we want you to make sure you feed and brush him every day."

*HONK-HONK*

I guess it's good we kept our clown-phobia a secret.

Anyway, they got us a dog.

Cherokee was a Golden Lab, which is hands-down my favorite type of dog. Labs are just great overall, a little on the destructive side as puppies (but aren't we all?), but great with people. Cherokee quickly wiggled her way into our hearts, and my sister and I were free of dog-anxiety. The next pet I got was a pair of gerbils I named Mario and Luigi (after my two favorite Italian plumbers). Once they met a sad fate (tails cut off by psycho kid next-door) I got Sunny.

Sunny was a Red-Eared Terrapin. I named him (at least, I assume it was a him...telling the sex of a turtle is tricky for a small child) "Sunny" because the sign on his aquarium at the pet shop said he hailed from Florida.

Where it's sunny. Get it?

This is roughly what Sunny looked like.

Anyway, Sunny was great but he freaked me out. When you pick up a little turtle like Sunny they tend the swipe at you with their feet. It doesn't hurt, but it felt strange and one time he did this to me I dropped him inside our house. Now, whatever lies you've been fed over the years about turtles being slow are false. Let me assure you that Sunny was a SPEED DEMON when he wanted to be.

He landed on the floor with a plop! and bolted towards the bar in our kitchen. My Uncle David was visiting at the time, and he managed to quickly bend down and snatch Sunny up before he could crawl underneath (and be lost forever)--but it was at a high cost.

For you see, David spit the ass of his pants out...

That Sunny was a real rebel.

He didn't care who's pants he ruined.

I used to dig up worms for him to eat and then watch him slurp them up like fat, writhing spaghetti. Because he was from Florida, Sunny lived mostly in the water, but he did have a big piece of quartz that he liked to climb up on. For the most part, Sunny was a fun, unoffensive pet--however there was one problem with Sunny.

He stunk.

Or rather, he stunk up his water. The water in his aquarium needed to be changed, and it was pretty gross (what with his turtle poop floating around in it). My mother, bless her, was the one who ended up doing this nasty bit of work. In fact, my Mom got stuck taking care of pretty much all of our pets after a while. I guess this is why we never got a pet without Mom's approval. She knew she'd be the one to take care of it, so unless she agreed it was a no-go.

Sunny became stinker and stinker as time went by, and eventually I knew that I was too old to have my mother cleaning-up after my turtle. I figured he'd die and I'd be off the hook--but reptiles live FOREVER--so instead I ended up giving Sunny to a neighborhood friend just before we moved away.

I never saw him again, but I like to think he had a pretty good ride. In fact, he's probably still alive...pooping and swiping. I'm serious, think twice before buying a reptile as a pet. Really be prepared to go in for the "long haul." There are turtles that are over 100 years old! Imagine all the pants they've ruined in that century!!!

So little Jimmy/Susie: I know you want that pet turtle, and you say you'll take care of him--but I know what'll happen...you'll enjoy him for a few decades and then get bored.

Wedding Bliss

Marriage is a many splendid things.

I still can’t believe that I’m married. It’s going to be a year this September since the “BIG Day,” and for the most part life is exactly as it was prior to the pomp and circumstance of our “small” wedding. Our wedding was small in the same way that a 747 Jet is smaller than Howard Hughes’s “Spruce Goose.” Even though I’m not really a big party person, I must admit that I did enjoy the wedding more than I thought I would.

But a wedding is a short celebration, when compared to “the rest of your life.” It’s only the first centimeter of the tip of the iceberg. After everyone goes home, and you clean the nonsense off your car—you have to go and live your life.

Right away, people were bombarding us both with a very stupid question: “How does it feel?” I guess we were supposed to feel different, but at the time it was like turning 16 or 25. We just keeping marching forward, there is no sudden, dramatic transformation—and being married is a bit like that or so I thought.

Eventually there are things that you notice. There are little things, like having the same last name and being introduced as “Mr. and Mrs.”

As time passed, people quit asking us “how does it feel?” But it’s kind of ironic that they stopped, because a few months later things have begun to feel different.
And then it happened—I had what I’d consider to be the first “real” incident of my new married life.

Up until last month, if someone had hired me to write a dictionary entry for the word “marriage” (or better yet, put a gun to my head and asked me to define it), my response would be pretty much: “Marriage is when two people make an everlasting commitment…blah, blah, blah” you get the drift. My answer to the question “what is marriage” would have been bullshit. But last month something happened. It was so perfect, that later as I thought about it, I realized that it is the actual definition of marriage.

Jason’s No-Bullshit Definition of Marriage: Marriage is when you are told “TAKE MY DOG OUTSIDE SO HE CAN SHIT,” then when you get back inside after cleaning up a big, steaming pile of dog crap you are immediately asked “GIVE ME $20!” and you not only don’t kick this person’s ass, but you actually fork over the money with no qualms.

That’s marriage.

But just incase you’re confused let me reiterate—marriage is being told to do unpleasant things, doing them, AND then for some reason paying $20. Now, if someone other than my wife ran up to me and said “Take my dog outside so he can shit” and then followed that up with “Give me $20!” I would not only NOT give them any money (or take their fucking dog outside) but I’d kick the crap out of them. I would literally kick them so hard in the gut that they would shit themselves.

And yet my wife can not only get me to essentially PAY HER to take her dog out (because after I do it, I’m asked for money), but she does not get a massive beat-down. Somehow, as if by some kind of “marriage magic,” she is able to get away with it.

Now please understand, my wife is a very sweet lady and I lover her very much. She’s very patient and tolerates my insanity quite well. And I don’t regret marrying her for one second—but somehow marriage allows her this insane “free-pass.” After this particular, picture-perfect definition of marriage, incident happened I sat back and shook my head. I just couldn’t believe that she not only got away with it, but that I felt absolutely no ill-will towards her.

It’s really quite amazing.

So maybe the short-hand for “Marriage is when you are told “TAKE MY DOG OUTSIDE SO HE CAN SHIT,” then when you get back inside after cleaning up a big, steaming pile of dog crap you are immediately asked “GIVE ME $20!” and you not only don’t kick this person’s ass, but you actually fork over the money with no qualms” could just be that “marriage is amazing.”