Friday 26th September, 2003 - Gerbil Mortality

I have had my interview. It is done. But I am not going to write about it. Not because I am afraid of jinxing it or anything, but because I am so sick of thinking about it, I desperately need to distract myself. From the constant intrusive thoughts of how 45 minutes of bullshitting to a panel of FIVE YES FIVE frightening professionals may end up representing the makey/breakyosity of my career.

A panel of FIVE! Holy shit. That must be a record.

Anyway, it is in the lap of the Gods now. Or more precisely, in the lap of the five evil gnomes who coldly sat in judgement of me this morning.

Enough job talk. There is other news. This site is called The Gerbilarium, though I've never really gone into why. To those who know me it will be obvious. I like gerbils. Not 'like' in a horrible, bum-related way. I just like them - I think they are superb pets. They are pretty, affectionate, clean, almost odourless, and easy to keep. Given that our flat is very very small indeed, they are ideal.

They have an average lifespan of between 2 and 3 years, which really isn't very long, so you should ideally be preparing yourself for their death the moment you buy them. If I were a pet-shop owner, I would do a special offer of a free gerbil-sized coffin with every two gerbils that you buy. And a tiny, black morning suit with top hat for the surviving gerbil to wear to the funeral.

A sensible person would keep a certain emotional distance from the little fellas. Or at least try to be realistic about the extent of their brain capacity, and thus their facility for emotions like fear, happiness, love, or even pain. Let alone their almost certainly non-existent ability to lead secret double-lives in our absence, which involve them having adventures with such friends as Valerie Vole, Billy Badger, and Cyril Squirrel. And driving tiny, Noddy-style motorcars with horns that go 'beep-beep-beeeeeep!'.

But Jane and I are not sensible people.

During the years we have owned gerbils, I have had occasional moments of clarity, when I've thought to myself 'Wow, we anthropomorphise these animals way too much. The more we imagine Minni and Pecan riding tiny tricycles around Guildford town centre to buy their Dad the Usher album for his Christmas stocking and suchlike, the harder it will be when the die. We are making big emotional investments in a fantasy. This is not healthy'. But then Minni would sniffle her nose at me or something, and I'd be down on all fours (how would you like me to finish this sentence? Damn you Richard Gere, for sexualising the gerbil!) and chattering away to her in gerbil baby-talk.

"Who's that pretty Minni? Who's that pretty Minni? Minni's that pretty Minni! And so on"

And then, inevitably, they die. And we are gutted. Minni died on Monday, at the grand old age of three-and-a-half years. She had a good innings etc. In truth, we were quite grown-up about it this time round, but it is still true that much of the grief for her death was over the fantasy Minni we had constructed in her heads. Have we done Minni a disservice by needing this Sylvanian Families-style daydream to base our pet-love around?

I don't think so. It is normal to see human-like qualities in our pets, isn't it? We can't help it. Perhaps Jane and I took it to the next level, with the rich lives and colourful cast of characters we imagined for our girls, but we still loved them for their own pea-brained selves too. They were nice, and we will miss their rattling and scuttling around.

There is now one remaining gerbil, Dotty. Perhaps we rushed her, but we tried to introduce a new gerbil into her home on Thursday. Apparently they get bored and lonely very quickly if they are on their own, so we thought we would try to find her a little friend. Unfortunately, Dotty didn't take having her space invaded very kindly, and ran he new gerbil out of town. She was very aggressive, and I found myself feeling dreadfully sorry for the new gerbil (named Marmalade by us, rather prematurely) as she cowered inside a small wooden barrel, with Dotty snapping at her whenever she swaggered past.

And we found ourselves doing it again. This time, instead of imagining our gerbils as tiny little angelic humans, we began to get annoyed with Dotty for being a bully. I felt like landing one on her. If I had had the opportunity to BINGE on BOOZE, I probably would have done (I could easily take a gerbil in a fight, even if the gerbil had a tiny gerbil-sized switchblade or nunchuks). We definitely gave her the cold shoulder and refused to play with her for a bit.

In hindsight, she was only doing what came naturally to her, and I think that our desire for a new 'friend for Dotty' was more akin to a desire for a new toy for us. Why do people get pets anyway? Isn't it just another toy? Not that you don't end up loving them all the same, but…. is it fair on the animal?

Yes. Of course it is. They get free food, free water, free shelter. They get stroked and cosseted, and allowed too get away with murder (sometimes literally, but only murder of other animals - animals that murder people are usually murdered themselves. The irony of this is lost on them, 'cos they are dead, and animals. And because being murdered by a human for murdering a human isn't actually ironic at all, its just revenge.) In short, pets have a fucking easy life. And the sooner they stop complaining the better.

I think the interview may have destroyed my brain.

In other news, the new issue of Drum has come out, and they have printed slightly edited versions of my reviews of 8-Mileand Antwone Fisher, as well as an article about issues in Black mental health. You can read the unedited versions here, or get hold of a copy of Drum from one of the outlets advertised on their website.