Pet Vendor, Hong Kong © 2023 Craig Dahlberg
I have always loved my pets, whether dogs, guinea pigs, my boa constrictor named Boaz, two lizards named Liz and Ard, or the zebra finches who suffered their simultaneous dramatic demise, feet pointing skyward in the bottom of their cage after choking on sunflower seeds. Yes, though cleaning cages can grow wearisome, I never thought of “doing in my pets” because of it. No way.
That is, until today—because today I received this notice from my extermination contractor: “Getting rid of pets just got easier.”
Imagine that! My exterminator, who rids our premises of cockroaches, rats, ants, and gophers, now has a side hustle: eliminating unwanted pets! No doubt he’s using the agony-inflicting chemicals already pre-loaded onto his truck! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the notice. What a brilliant, demented scheme! A one-stop shop to eliminate all annoying vermin and all pets!
I was infuriated and determined to whistleblow these clowns. I hastily typed in a Google search for the phone numbers of ASPCA, PETA and Petco. I was seething with a holy, self-righteous sort of seething.
As my computer hunted for the numbers, I fumed (not, “fumigated”) as I read the exterminator company’s promotional blurb one more time: “Getting red of pests just got easier.”
Oh—PESTS, not PETS! Whoop-sie. My mis-read. My bad.
As my blood pressure gradually receded, it gave me time to think. I was relieved. Good! I still get to annihilate cockroaches, yet keep my precious pets!
And I wondered about my pets.
As it turns out, I have a lot of “pets” beyond the furry and scaly variety. In fact, I possess a virtual menagerie in my garage. There are the soft-back and hardback books undisturbed for decades, their yellow rat-pee stained pages buried beneath compound layers of gathered dust. Beside them lie the carcasses of ancient iPhones, rest in peace. Lurking in the shadows, buried in random plastic containers, lie thousands of orphaned screws, bolts, nails, and washers. All my pets.
This Pet Became a Pest. A Scary One.
I had other pets that did not inhabit my garage. It started out as a pet, small and cute and respectable, but it eventually outgrew its own sort of cage, which was a record player case. In 1936, Sergei Prokofiev composed “Peter and the Wolf” for kids just like me. When I was in first grade, I had access to my parents’ record player and that record. I loved that record and that player. At first.
When I placed the armature of that record player onto the black spinning plastic, magic happened. Out jumped every character in the story, each portrayed by a different instrument—a bassoon for the grandfather, kettle drums for the hunters, nasty french horns for the nasty wolf, a flute for the freaked-out-frightened bird, and an oboe for the duck who was eaten alive by the wolf. Alas, heroic Peter, represented by a calming stringed section, arrived on the scene too late to allay my panic-mottled pink cheeks.
When the climactic, freak-me-out scary music let forth, I knew that the characters were alive beneath my dark and dusty bed. The wolf! The hunter! The mangled duck! The frightened bird! Mercy! Quick—I must get on top of the bed until the massacre was over!
My pets—the record and record player—obviously went very wrong. The story had grown too real, and the record player became a huge pest of frightening proportion. Eventually, I didn’t even want to play the thing. A pest, perhaps, and even more than that. My pet became a pest and a terror.
This Pest Became a Pet. A Lovely One.
Two of my grandchildren own a Rattus, the fancy genus name for a rat. I have unwittingly owned several of these creatures myself. They lived in our attic. After several seasons enduring scratching and gnawing sounds above my bed, and two episodes of profound stench from decaying corpses of deceased rodents, I brought in the professional with the big guns—er, rat traps.
“No need for cheese,” explained the exterminator. “These curious critters explore anything new, including a rat trap, and then, smack! The bar from the trap snaps shut and crushes any body part in its way.” He was right. In short order, I could have displayed a respectable Rattus pelt exhibit.
My granddaughter, June, owned a pet rat, Reepicheep, who was different. Reepicheep had crossed beyond the boundary of “pest-hood,” elevated to the honor of “pet-hood.” June knew just the right places to scratch him. He rested trustingly around her neck, a reciprocal bond of true friendship whenever June liberated him from his cage.
Pets Become Pets; Pests Become Pets
Perhaps I have this “pet” label and “pest” label hopelessly backward. Maybe I’ve been calling my “pets” my “pests.” And maybe I’ve been calling my “pests” my “pets.”
My pests are like this: For a long time, I’ve called life’s troubles, my “pests.” But later, looking back, I think, “I grew a lot. I learned a lot. I changed a lot. Huh!” Sort of like a friend helps you grow, in weird ways. The dictionary definition of “Trouble” is: “Trouble,” which is something that is just no good, and it hurts. But sometimes, in a weird way, trouble is good for me. And therefore my pests, my former troubles, have become my pets, the things I have come to value.
And my pets are like this: For a long time, I’ve called the warm and fuzzy and cuddly things in life, my “pets.” You know, the sorts of things that make me feel comfortable. And time-wasting. And draining. And shallow. And aimless.
You know, those kinds of pets.
You know, those kinds of pests.