Sometimes I amaze myself. A few weeks ago I was sitting in my dad’s office on the phone with Punkin, waiting for him to come back with baby Pookie so I could take it home...my big Pookie was still out getting lobotomized. I was reflecting on the evils of parakeets and why they are disgusting, such as they shed feathers all over your clean laundry even when the laundry is in your bathroom and they are in a cage on the other side of your bedroom. They throw seed and other fun things all over the wall, and never talk or sing, just scream. I had two, Abelard and Eloise, but Eloise died a long time ago. I realized how much that damn bird Abelard and I hated each other, and I ranted to Punkin about how I wished the stupid thing would just die and get it over with so I could go on with my life and not have to worry about who to trick into taking it when I go live in a dorm next year. I said several times very clearly that I wished it would die and had a lot of evil thoughts.
I got home and it was dead. I almost felt bad, like when I kicked Tootsie in the knee and he fell over and I laughed, and when I beat the koi out of Kevin and he bled on Leah’s carpet. I almost feel bad about things a lot....
The bird dying on command was kind of frightening, but then that Sunday I gave myself a real complex. Punkin and I made a Sonic run and drove around for a while. When we got back to her house, her mother informed us that Linda McCartney, my most-hated rival, had finally died of cancer. I blanked out, but I have vague memories of hysterical giggles and then collapsing on Punkin’s bed muttering, "Oh God, I killed her, I killed her, I killed her, and I’m glad I killed her." I’m not really, because it upset Paul a lot, but it’s hard to help these things. She got cancer right after I decided to become an insane Macca groupie. I think it was my fault. I gave my uncle liver cancer after he threw lit firecrackers at my sister and me. He died. I didn’t feel bad, except a little for my aunt.
Then I found out she had died the same day as the bird. How thoughtless.
We called an emergency Splut, chased down Puddin, pried Tootsie off her leg, and made her drive after that while we watched it rain and thought morbid thoughts, wondering how much gas it would take to get to Tucson and go through with the nail polish and kilt thing. Sailordaisy lives there and I was afraid she would track him down and catch him first.
I shouldn’t get to have pets. I am lethal. My hamster died. I only had it maybe a month. I adored it. Puddin named it Florence the Special Butcher from Marz. I called it Felix for short. I got it a cute cage with a wheel and chew sticks and a salt lick and a little house and cedar shavings and three kinds of food and it died anyway. Maybe I liked it too much. The disgusting part was it took me three days to notice it died. I thought it was asleep because it always played at night anyway. Then I realized it wasn’t keeping me up all night smacking its water bottle against the cage and knew something had to be wrong.
I had goldfish too. I named one Eric J Jr., after my math teacher. It grew big black spots and died in a week. The other one I named after Tootsie. It lasted a surprisingly long time. Kevin got me a Beanie Baby goldfish after the first one died...this was before Beanie Babies became a mass psychosis, and before I beat him up. I named it Eric J III. I named my green pocket trout Eric J IV. Poor Mr. Johansen. He always gives me this strange look. I sat by Puddin in anal-math. Once I leaned over to get my finger nun out of my backpack, hit my head on the underside of a table, and fell out of my chair. He likes to throw things, especially marker lids. We formed a Math Club on our own for the hell of it. I think I was the Guardian Sailor or something like that. I suggested that we each have our own Sailor Math names like Sailorparabola and Sailorderivative. But no one ever listens to me.
There was a lizard, a really small chameleon named McKenzie. It made it a year and a half. It took me a long time to find something it would eat. Someone suggested turtle food, which she didn’t like, my biology teacher said live crickets, which I was not about to catch, and finally she decided to like bloodworms, which I guess is fish food. Smelled nasty enough. The birds were just stupid. Now I want a nutria.
Or maybe another goldfish.