A Pilgrim’s Digression

My blog posts are becoming rarer and rarer these days, as my free time becomes consumed with playing World of Warcraft. Even taking time away from the game to write in my paper-and-ink diary is sometimes painful. I’ve always kept a diary as much out of pleasure as a sense of duty, but now it has become all duty.

Blogging is not quite at the level of a duty just yet, but it may get there one day. I find myself becoming increasingly disinterested in things which formerly gave me pleasure. Reading, for example. Whether this is all a result of the game, or merely a natural result of the aging process, I haven’t figured out yet.

All I know is, consider this post about my family an increasingly rare report from someone who seems to be losing the balance between his “real” life and his escapist fantasies.

This weekend, we gave Brendan his first pet. He has been pestering us for a puppy for over a year, but my wife and I are both a little wary of the amount of mess and havoc a puppy can create in a house where both adults work long hours and have little time for strict housebreaking of an animal.

Several weeks ago, we tried giving him a kitten. Since we already have an older cat (ten years old as of this past August), that experiment did not work out. The older cat acted hurt and angry at us. The kitten meowed constantly, unhappy with her new home. Brendan drove us nuts carrying the kitten around like a toy. Two days of that, and two nights of constant meowing, growling, hissing from both cats, and I insisted we give the kitten back to the previous owner.

So weeks passed, and another opportunity came our way. Our neighbor recently acquired a hamster, and while visiting at her house, Brendan got a big kick out of playing with it. Plus, here was an animal that didn’t seem to mind being held. It is low maintenance and clean. Maybe a hamster would stave off his desire for a puppy.

So Sunday, we brought home a hamster and all the equipment necessary for keeping it happy and healthy. It seems like a good beginner pet for a five year-old boy. He can keep it supplied with food and water. He can play with it much as he would a kitten or another animal, without the fear of getting bitten or scratched.

After bringing the animal home, I stressed to him over and over again the rules that would govern his ownership of a pet: he has to keep it fed and watered; he has to treat it as a fragile, living being, not as a toy; he isn’t to take it out of its home without either his mother or myself being present; it is never allowed to run free on the floor (we still have our old cat, after all).

Seems like an easy set of rules to remember, but Brendan is five years old. We’ll see how he handles it.

One of the things we bought at the pet store was a clear ball into which you can place the hamster so that it can roll around on the floor. It rolled all over the house, much to the the delight of the cat. Oddly, the cat seems more curious than aggressive. Of course, I would not want to put her docility to the test. Cats have this thing about disembowling and eating small rodents after catching them.

At first, Brendan named his hamster David, after the little boy in the series of books by David Shannon. These books are some of Brendan’s favorites because they feature a little boy who is always getting yelled at by his mother. I think Brendan has a deep empathy for the character. Personally, I just find it interesting that David, the character in the book, has an absent father who appears in a framed photo on top of the TV, but who apparently plays no part in the life of the family. Where is he? Working?

Anyway, after about a day of referring to the hamster as David, Brendan decided to call it Whiskers because we don’t really know if the hamster is a boy or girl, and David is a boy’s name. Whiskers, apparently, is a gender-neutral name.

Brendan has been quite good, so far, with following the rules and caring for the critter. My hope is that it teaches him something about love and caring for others. My wife and I both have been disturbed by his apparent willingness to get rid of our cat, so that a new cat or dog can move in. When we got rid of the kitten because of the discomfort it was causing our old cat, Brendan’s attitude was that it should be the old cat who got the boot, not “his” kitten.

There is no love lost between them. Our cat is ten years old, and not in a mood to be played with by a five year old. She lived with me in my apartment in Morgantown, when I was a graduate student. She has always been my cat, even when Lynn and I moved in together, though recently she has been showing Lynn more affection than she ever has previously. Now, hopefully, having a pet of his own will teach Brendan something about the love my cat has given me over the years.