The Pete-ster

Aside from my normal duties as wife and mother, my main preoccupation these last couple of weeks has been keeping Petey the bird alive. I think I have found a solution. I grudgingly forked out the money to buy this small fortress for Eliza's parakeet. Our two cats are still obsessed with catching the little guy, but I think this will keep them from their goal. They might still jump up on the table when I'm gone and give him little tiny heart attacks, but I think the excitement will do him good...

...because he lives alone. A member of a species that normally spends their time in large groups is isolated in his little cage in our house. I have tremendous guilt about this. My sister, owner of two happily co-habitating parakeets, says we should get him a friend. But I have different thoughts.

We have always had two pet rats at a time. They live together, groom each other, sleep all piled up in one big grey and white mass and are obviously happy together. And then one of them dies. And it is TORTURE to see the other one sitting in the corner all alone. It is awful.

When our first rat died, I asked our neighbor who is a vet if we should put the other one down too. I expressed my concern about the living one's grief. He was patient with me and said, in his slow, thick Southern drawl, "Wellll, ah don't think rats have feelings like that."

I don't believe him. And maybe because I have a firm belief in a happy afterlife, I am totally ok with putting animals down. Life alone and sad, or Heaven where everybody is happy and safe? Hmmm. That's a no-brainer.

So, back to Petey. I think in his case the saying, "Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" won't apply. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

(Or, unrelated to Petey but super funny, as the refrigerator magnet that my sister gave our mom says, "Better to have loved and lost than to stay married to a d. bag for the rest of your life)