I’m not anti-pet. I’ve been pro-pet my entire life.
My son came home last week having made a terrible discovery. He’s the only kid in his class without a pet. The teacher did a show of hands. Dogs, cats, hamsters, one kid apparently has a boa constrictor, which sounds like the premise for a Werner Herzog documentary. Every hand went up. Except his.
He reported this at dinner with the gravity of someone filing a police statement. A minor but permanent emotional devastation. I noted it. Filed it.
The thing is, I grew up in an indy-budget zoo. Rodents, frogs, lizards, birds, small critters, something always chewing through cardboard. Which likely informed my belief that children need animals around. To build empathy, teach responsibility, prevent sociopathy, more or less in that order.
It’s true we’d been stalling. The plan was to ease in, fish first, something that couldn’t make eye contact or file a complaint, then a dog or cat in spring once we’d earned it.
So. Guppies. A peaceful aquatic community. Pastel little bodies. My kid was incandescent with pride. Within two days, they started dying. I told myself it was natural causes. Fish are fragile. Fish are unknowable. Fish, I said to no one, just do this sometimes.
The replacement guppies I bought hastily to keep morale high revealed themselves to be territorial, and furiously interested in each other’s fins. Seven fish entered. One remained.
He circled the tank in a way that felt less Finding Nemo, more American Psycho, all business card energy and zero remorse. We returned him to the pet store. The five-dollar credit felt like hush money.
We’d bought guppies to prevent sociopathy. We ended up teaching him the food chain, and the going rate for a crime scene: five dollars. Whether that counts as parenting I’m still deciding.
Next up: a cat or a dog. Something my son can raise his hand for. Ideally still alive.
X Lenski
THE SALMON DANCE – THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS (2007)
Dir. W.I.Z · TRT 3:57
A fish voiced by Fatlip from The Pharcyde raps about being a fish. Fully committed. Borderline educational. The kind of video that shouldn’t work and absolutely does. Pure id. No notes.
DA FUNK - Daft Punk (1995)
Dir. Spike Jonze · TRT 6:13
The greatest music video ever made about a lonely dog walking through a city with a broken boom box. Which is also, in many ways, about being the only kid in class without a pet. Bonus: BTS on them making the Dog Mask!
KEDI (2016)
Dir. Ceyda Torun · TRT 79 min
A beautiful documentary about the street cats of Istanbul. Independent. Mysterious. Emotionally unavailable. Basically the opposite of guppies.
That’s all for this week. Class is dismissed.
P.S. Got a clip, short, or lost gem you or your kids loved? Send it my way. I’m always looking for the strange and wonderful stuff that slipped through the cracks.
xLenski
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.