had to make a tough call

[Lindsayface47]

Hmmm, Maybe I can plop him in Alex's hands and he will decide to keep him... LOL

That's what happened with all of my pets. Shall I list the scenarios for you in order?

Now, I had yet to be conceived when my mom and sister got our cat, Katy, twenty years ago. My mom had promised my then-two year old sister as many fish as she could count, and since she could count to ten, my mom was banking on getting only ten fish. When they got there, there was a kitten sitting on the edge of the fish tank, with her paw in the water, trying to get the fish. They ended up getting her. Twenty years later, she's relatively senile, is terrified of my goldfish, and likes to sleep in her litter box.

I love Katy, but I've always been more of a dog person, and I'd been begging my mom for as long as I can remember for a dog. In the fourth grade, we have to take something called the FCAT Writes, which are standardized tests for writing. I hated the format, and basically refused to put any effort into my practice tests. My teacher was worried that I would fail, as I was scoring 3/6 on the tests, which is average, but very low for someone of my writing skills. My mom told me that if I were to get a 5 or higher, she would get me a dog. I ended up getting a 5.5, the highest in my school. We went to quite a lot of pet stores that summer, but none of the dogs there caught my fancy. June fourth, my sister and I were babysitting our cousins, when on the way home, I remembered there was a pound a few minutes from where we were at the time. I convinced my mom to stop so I could "just look." That's when I fell in love with Oliver, my lab/golden retriever/great dane/greyhound. For the first time in my life, I truly understood what it was like to love an animal so much that all you want to do is bury your face in its fur and hug it. Olly was eleven pounds when we got him, and today he tops just over 150, despite having .01% body fat. He's a funky looking dog, but I love him.

We got Tara, my black lab, that December. We stopped at the farmers market to pick up a bottle of wine for my aunt and uncle on the way to Christmas with my grandparents. Some lady was selling puppies out of the back of a pick-up truck, and my sister and I went to look. My mom told us that if we somehow managed to come up with $100 within the day, she would get us one. Guess what my grandparents gave to my sister and me for the first time that year? Fifty dollars each. Oh yeah. My mom didn't want to keep her promise, but when we put Tara in her arms, and Tara licked her face and fell asleep, we knew that we had won.

July 31, 2010 was my cousin Matt's wedding. They were using goldfish in mason jars as centerpieces. I hadn't had a fish in years, but we still had tanks from other fish, and our frogs, who unfortunately died because of bad crickets. I guilted my mom into letting me keep one, whom I named General Zanzabar, because I knew that he would have died otherwise. He's roughly 5 inches long, and always tries to jump out of his tank. I have another fish, too, named Jim the Fish (Doctor Who? Anybody?), but I just decided to buy him one day when I was getting crickets at Petsmart.

In fourth grade, when I saw the movie Holes, I was really fascinated by the yellow spotted lizards, so I looked up what animal they used to play them. That was when I learned about beardies. I waited nine years for one, and finally saw my chance earlier this year when I almost died. Multiple times. I asked my mom if I could get either a beardie or a hedgehog for my eighteenth birthday/present for not dying (multiple times). She said no to the hedgehog, but agreed to the beardie. When we got to Petsmart, I fell in love with Ezra immediately. I handed him over to her, and she groaned, and told me I could get him. I swear she loves him just as much as I do. She gets so excited to buy him vegetables, and she's spent hours online looking at tips for owning them. It's kind of cute, actually.

I'm sorry I rambled so much, but I wanted to share my wonderful stories of manipulating my mother, who pretends that she detests animals, but actually loves them.