Blunt Wit

What goes around comes around, funny how life has a way of balancing everything out.

Several years ago when we were visiting my brother in California his young panicky cat slipped under his car and refused to come out. After a watching the entire family try to coax the timid kitten out, I sauntered up and with no uncertain amount of bravado blustered, “Let me get him out, I speak Cat.” So I squatted down and let loose an authoritative “Meow.” “Darn if I don’t sound like a cat,” I thought to myself. And then, wouldn’t you know it, Boots came tumbling right out. My young kids looked at me in awe. Being totally within character, I took full credit for this feline rescue.

So from that point on M and S actually believed that I spoke Cat. I’m not kidding. At the zoo they exhorted me to translate for the Tigers. To laugh at the Lions. I told them, “Lions are proud creatures that wouldn’t admit to speaking lowly House Cat,” while suppressing a big chuckle. They implored me to yell at the Jaguars to come over and bare their fangs. This myth not only perpetuated for years, but in fact, grew in stature. One day not long after the original “Boots incident” while at the park M, knowing that I already spoke Cat, on a lark asked me if I also barked Dog. “Well, heck, once you purr a little Cat, what’s a little Dog,” I thought to myself. So I said “Yes,” barked at a dog to come over and wouldn’t you know it – he did! This marvelous myth persisted for years. I teased them mercilessly and laughed and laughed (on the inside). I became so full of myself.

But then life has a way of slipping away as air slowly hisses out of a holey bike tire. I don’t know exactly when or how, but sort of like the invisible deflating of the Santa Claus or Tooth fairy myths, one day I woke up to find that my kids didn’t believe I spoke Cat or Dog anymore. In fact, in a rude turnabout, they had taken to piteouslessly teasing me about it when I continued to “meow” and “bark” away at rogue pets. Which stung mightily because, truth be told, after so many years of them believing, I had come to the inexorable conclusion that I actually could speak to animals.

To this day, I still believe with all my heart that my perfect pitched purr will get through to those cats without the odd hearing impairment or personality disorder.

“Meow.” “Meow.” “Prrrrrrrr.”

All hail to the chief! And by that I mean me. Father and commander-in-chief of the state of my own family. Or so I would like to believe.

So please pause a moment in silence as we mourn the passing of a member of our family. Young Tommy died recently of thirst or hunger or a myriad of other possible illnesses. Or possibly an overzealous door slam. And I killed him. Or at least that is what my wife and children say.
Tommy was our pet hamster. He was just another in a long line of hapless animals to mysteriously kick the proverbial bucket under my watchful eye. I didn’t kill him. I swear it. My wife took the kids to visit the in-laws and left me to take care of things. One of those chiefly being the well being and continued existence of Tommy. But somehow he escaped. Poof, one day he was just gone. An empty cage. A little hamster Houdini. Darn, I knew I should have cuffed him to his miniature flywheel while I went to work. Too late. Anyway, a week or so after they got back we found him wedged behind a door. My kids called for an impeachment – hamster autopsy but the judge ruled I, as next closest of kin, could determine the COD (cause of death). So I pronounced it poor hamster suicide and we buried him in a shoebox in the back yard next to Lester the goldfish, yet another unfortunate casualty that I had nothing to do with (or at least directly).

Of course this ‘Tommy incident’ just managed to dredge up all the ill will from the previous ‘Lucky incident’ all those years back. Then we were living in Beijing and to keep up with the Joneses (or in this case the Wang’es) we bought a pet bird. Not just any bird, mind you, but some rare, talking squawker. We named the unlucky avian, Lucky. Talk about irony. He would squawk in his pigeon Chinese … ‘Qu ba’, ‘Qu ba’ which can be translated as ‘go’ or more colloquially as ‘go take a long walk off a short pier’. This he told you to do constantly. After a week of sleepless nights of endless squawking, I tried to convince my wife we needed to eat fried chicken-like bird for dinner. A sympathetic friend eventually taught us how to put a cloth over the cage to shut Lucky up thus sparing his life for the time being.

So like with the current ‘Tommy incident’ my wife took the kids to see the in-laws and left me in charge. Well, wouldn’t you know, I come home from work one day to find Lucky claws up on the bottom of his cage. On the positive side, I did notice that he had a pleasant look on his beak so I have to believe he had a peaceful passing. I’m guessing stress induced heart attack … the number one killer in talking birds (or so I’m told). I went down to the market to buy a replacement bird, thinking I could fool them into thinking that some bizzarro Lucky was somehow the real deal. No luck(y). So again there were calls for my resignation as father, my impeachment as chief caregiver in our household. However, like Bush/Cheney, it would take more than a few innocent causalities to get me to acknowledge my mistakes. So we stayed the course. Surged ahead and got a golden retriever puppy.

I guess that’s why our dog Jasmine these days is always eying me with deep canine suspicion. Dreadfully afraid for the next time my wife takes the kids to visit the in-laws.