With a house full of children since the day I married, I’ve learned to tolerate the critters they call pets. As long as the pets kept out of my way, they could stay. I haven have fed some occasionally.
Especially this fall when my last son went off to college and left behind his only sister. For the first time I am parenting only one at-home child, my daughter, a high school freshman.
With no older brothers to tease little sister, something has changed. I’m not sure exactly what. I noticed it recently when the black cat joined me as I started to wash the load of clothes.
This cat loves to watch the movement of water. At the sound of a flush or turning on of a tap, she becomes a black streak heading for the moving water. Shortly after she came, she stuck her head inside the shower curtain to watch the water spraying out of the shower head while my college son, home for a visit, was taking a shower. My son did not care if that cat only wanted to watch the shower of water. He objected to her invasion of his privacy.
So when I started the wash machine recently. I knew what the cat wanted when it jumped up on the dryer and stared inside the wash tub. I held the button down to keep the machine running with the lid open so the cat could watch the water sloshing around the wash machine.
I actually asked my daughter to fix the switch so the cat could continue to watch the water. This is not the Joan of a houseful of children.
Worse are the silent fish my son left behind when he went to college.
My daughter and I take turns feeding them. They may be limited to swimming circles in their tanks, but those fish have developed a staring technique that sends me rushing for their food, even when I’ve already fed them that day.
Those cotton pickin’ goldfish swim to the end of the tank nearest to the door and stay there all of them lined up faces to the glass looking expectantly through the door waiting for me to walk by, notice them and toss them another handful of food.
If I am in the room reading a book or watching TV, they swim to the front of the tank and stare at me until I pitch in a few pellets to start a feeding frenzy. Their helpless look does it every time.
But until my son left them in my care, I ignored the things. Now I am at their every beck and stare.
I think with my sons having left the next and my daughter nearly full grown, I am looking for some poor helpless little ones needing my attention.
I can’t believe I have written this column. Me!? The one who has always scoffed at people who treat their pets at children substitutes. I am finding ways to entertain a cat and preparing snacks for goldfish with a starving stare.
It’s so true, I actually caught myself asking our princely white cat as he waited at the back door, “Do you want to go outside?”
The cat gave me a scornful teenage stare and waited for me to slide the thing open.
Old age and my fast emptying nest have gotten to me. I need to get a life.