Animal House

No, not THAT animal house. I'm talking about my childhood house, which my sister now lives in, which I will be calling The Animal House from now on.

Like every little kid, I so desperately wanted a puppy and begged for one every day, if not every waking minute of my childhood. The answer was always "No, we're too busy for a dog," which was true. But as a kid I thought that was the lamest excuse I'd ever heard. That burning desire to get a puppy still haunts me... All the time! But, like my parents had said, I'm just too busy for a puppy... Still!

I would BEG to go to the pet store at the mall. My parents took me there quite a bit. (I don't know why because I would cry every time we had to leave). And every time I would still ask for a pet. How about a puppy? No, Leslie. Okay, fine. No puppy. How about a bunny? No, Leslie. A kitten? No, Leslie we already have 2 cats. A turtle? Okay, you can get a turtle.

WHAT!!!!! A turtle?! THIS is the one they should have said no to! We quickly found out how stinky and gross they are. And their food looks a lot like their poop, so I never knew when I should clean the tank. Let's just say we didn't keep "Bubbles," for long.

We had two cats growing up. Mocha, who was the fattest and grouchiest cat on the planet, who would torture me and wait at the bottom of the stairs to swat my ankles. I would cry at the top of the stairs and call for someone to come get her. I was definitely way too old to be crying about it and I still get made fun of for it today. But I did love my Mocha girl, no matter how mean she was. Truffle was our other cat. She was the tiniest little runt and was the kitten everyone wished for. She never really grew into a full size cat. She also wasn't completely there in the head, but was so darn sweet!

I also had a fish, whose name I don't remember. But he was a blue beta fish. He also didn't last long.... Another animal story where I was too old to be crying about. One day when I went to empty out the dirty water... He fell out into the sink. And went down the disposal. No, it wasn't on, but we all know where this is heading. I immediately started to panic and told my mom and dad to get it out. Neither of their hands could fit down the sink and since I still to this day have arms of a 10 year old, they told me I had to do it. But I couldn't think of reaching down and touching the fish so I started to cry and said I couldn't do it. I don't think anyone cared about the fish, but NO ONE wanted to be the first one to turn on the disposal. (I think I was gone for that... On purpose).

Now for the animals who WEREN'T our pets...

We lived on a lake and one day I was playing in the street (do kids even do that anymore?) and a Canadian goose started walking up to me. The goose didn't look like it was doing that well and was getting way too close to me. I started to walk away from it and it was following me.... Quickly. I had a plastic hockey stick, so I knew I had a backup plan if it tried to attack me. I started walking faster and so did the goose. I started running and so did the goose. Now, I'm fully sprinting home and swinging a hockey stick behind me at the goose. I ran inside and the goose sat at our door pecking. The goose was really sick and was slobbering and snotting all over our glass door. We got it some bread and when he would eat, he would also poop all over our front porch. This was turning into a sad nightmare. We called my parents and they called the humane society or another animal control place to come pick it up.

Flash forward a few years and my mom and I found a tiny white bird in the yard with a broken wing. Since we know nothing about birds, we didn't know if it was a chicken or a dove or something else (I realize chickens and doves don't look alike. And how weird it would be to have either of those appear in our backyard). But it was a very tiny white bird. We put it in a box and we called someone to come rescue the wild animal. Again.

Flash forward to last Saturday and we have another incident on our hands. My sister, brother-in-law and I were sitting around before heading to a wedding when we heard loud chirping noises, followed by tons of branches and dirt falling out of a very large tree. I saw a nest fall out of the tree and immediately assumed it was for baby birds. Me and Calvin went outside to see what was happening. We were cursing the squirrels who we thought knocked the baby birds, but when we got closer we didn't see any birds. The nest was for baby squirrels. We found one in the bark and I found one who had fallen onto the brick fire pit. My eyes filled with tears so fast when I saw this poor little baby who had fallen probably 20 feet out of the tree on to the brick. But it was still breathing!!! I started whining and saying to come save this one. Calvin scooped up one baby with the nest and said no because the other one was dead. "But its still breathing Calvin, look!! (in the saddest whining/crying voice ever)." So he picked it up an put it in the nest, just in time to see another poor baby squirrel fall out of the tree. (insert more tears here)

At this point we have 3 baby squirrels put in their broken nest in hopes of the mama coming to rescue them. We went inside to give the mom some privacy... AKA us watching like hawks to see what happened. And we watched as the mom frantically climbed down the tree, squeaking at the babies and them speaking back. The mama squirrel's tail was whipping so fast, you could sense her fear and urgency. She came down and picked one up in her mouth and flipped it around to check her baby out, then ran off with her. At this point my sister and I were both crying at how sweet it was to watch her rescue her babies. And started wondering why she saved that baby first and would she come back for the others? Or would other squirrels from the squirrel community come save them for her? (I know, we've seen too many Disney movies).

But we didn't see her come back for a few minutes and my sister and I began to worry that she only grabbed the one who wasn't touched. So we decide to try and lure her back in by putting food in the nest. We watched a few greedy squirrels steal the food and bypass the babies (apparently they aren't a squirrel community like we had hoped).

We started to get ready for the wedding and agreed that if the babies were still out there, we would bring them somewhere on our way to the wedding to be checked out. And I went out to look and she came back for all 3 of the babies!

I know this story has nothing to do with riding the bus, except for the fact that I'm writing this on the bus :)

It was just too sweet of a story not to share! And a much happier post than my rant on Friday.