Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

Have you seen LOLcats yet? I like the cute expressions on the cats, and their captions are enormously funny!

Now, having read about the stories about antics of their pets from other pet owners, like Mr Miyagi, as well as the adventures of a SPCA Volunteer, I giggled myself silly at the prospect of having my own animal stories to tell. And then stopped short.

I’m not sure if getting a pet is a good proposition at all. For the better part of my early childhood, I had hamsters, which were supposedly meant to be my playmates. They were interesting to me for a little while, but being the couch potato television addict that I was, left them alone in their cages. My mom cleaned their cages and fed them. But the hamsters bred fast, and since they don’t have notions of incest, leaving a son and mother together for too long will soon find the cage filled with little hamsters.

Despite her urging me to help take care of them, I always walked past the cage without taking a second look. The hamsters didn’t stink (or at least their smell wasn’t smelly to me), but if I was not going to take care of the hamsters, I shouldn’t be allowed to have pets. And with that, she gave the newborns to other people once they were big enough, and we kept the incestuous son and mother hamster in a blue tank originally meant for fishes until they passed away of old age.

After that point, I was banned from having any pets. Not that I really cared anyway, since I was always hanging out in the media resource room in school after classes until the sun set. The Internet industry in Singapore was in its infancy, and I was already an addict. That marked the end of the age where pets were in my lives — perhaps for their good.

10 years later, and I find myself out of National Service. With the Internet so prevalent in Singapore it is easy for pet owners to go online and share their pet experiences with the world. Reading their blogs sometimes make me wish to have a pet, but deep within my heart I know that I’m still not sure if I can, or am willing to take care of an animal. Dogs may be lovable, excitable and easily satisfied, but with me coming home from school at 5-6pm in the evening, and leaving the house at 7am in the morning, I”m doubtful that I can devote enough attention to one. Sure, I can feed it, clean its litter or give it a shower, but if I can’t find time to play with it, that would be tantamount to bringing in a pet, and then wasting its time in my house. I’d rather not adopt one, so that it has a better chance of finding a good family to adopt it.

Maybe I should give myself another 10 years to think this over.

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