Miriam Feder

A scary tale for Hallowe’en: obsession; self-destruction; deterioration; and divorce

I’m a mad dog, a terrible creature who will be miserable my entire life through until a shell pierces my skull. She doesn’t like me. She’d just as soon see me dead. Mostly she’d like her ankle back.

I don’t know exactly why I bit her ankle. I hate ladies—I hate this lady: hate; hate; hate her. But I love having her ankle in my mouth. I’m so used to having this ankle in my mouth. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t bite it anymore.  Would life be as sweet?  Would I have all those fantasies again about ankles?
Would I feel lonely? Would I long to have my mouth fill with her blood?

Do I even like blood?  I don’t know–I’m a dog. I’m bred to hang on, so I do.

She was nice to me, once. She fed me, scratched my ear, but then I ran away.  When I came back she said that she was “really quite allergic.”  She felt better without me. But that’s not gonna work with me.  NOBODY stops scratching my ears. I’ll bite.  That’s all there is to it. I’ll show her.

She’s wondering how she can get rid of me. But she can’t. She can’t cut off her foot.  That’s not really a solution. I don’t think she’ll go for the old silver bullet. I mean she could wind up worse off than me.  She thinks I’ll get tired and fall off, or maybe I’ll get hungry, or distracted.

What if we pass a really good Bar B Que? Oooo that smell…that smell might get me.

Oh look, a ball–a kid with a ball. I could only go for that ball.

(starts chuckling) She is so frustrated; trapped by a dog this way.  She really cannot believe this is happening to her. She’s busy. I know cause she keep saying that to me after she stops screaming.
And she’s bleeding. Her strength is bleeding away. Yeah, right in my mouth.

She screams out  ”Won’t someone please shoot this dog?  Please, if I circle back around the block one more time, will you please have your gun ready and try to shoot the dog?  Shoot the damn dog and don’t shoot me? Please.”

But she is panting so hard, nobody understands her. Just like a dog.

 

 Mad Dog: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (108)

After the guinea pigs featured in Special Delivery there were more critters–of course.  This is the journey through reptiles and that most unbelievable pet–the rat. Can you imagine inviting rats into your house–ON PURPOSE?

I’ve always loved animals but I’m timid with them. I wrote endless reports on animals in second grade. I learned my eagle-eye parking skills combing the curbside at Lincoln Park Zoo most Saturdays. I knew all the dog breeds. I longed for companionship—but I wheezed. A mynah bird was my heart’s desire.

First in the line of furless pets were goldfish—an unrewarding, often suicidal pet. I would make fish gravestones for the toilet seat. This at least kept my parents entertained. I graduated to turtles. They were much more interesting; they could be carried, raced, and kissed—if no one was supervising.

I had a series of little red-eared turtles, too insignificant to remember. But I had one rather more complex turtle. He was a little bigger and a little more feisty. There was no debating his name—he was born to be Speedy Gonzalez. He usually ran in the right direction and fast.

They told me I’d outgrow the allergies but I didn’t, so my daughter had reptiles too—lizards. Turtles were politically incorrect, by then. The reticulated skink arrived for her 7th birthday. This animal was perpetually terrified. It was hard to catch, let alone hold and play with. When we sat down to the Passover Seder that year and the youngest asked “why is this night different from all other nights” we all knew the answer was because Skinky lost his tail after the visiting family mobbed and grabbed at him. Hours later, after both hunger and the Red Sea were crossed, the lonely tail was still twitching.

We took in a friend’s skinks, which were much bigger and better socialized. They would sit on our heads and whisper in our ears—charming lizard tricks. They also chomped down crickets like t-rex taking on a subdivision. They terrorized our original skink. We bought peace with partition. Eventually, we needed something bigger on the cuddle factor.

Some people just cannot have rats—that naked tail gives them the creeps. That was my husband. But for the rest of us, the rat is the Cadillac of rodent pets. They’re smart. Our rats were never so highly trained as the rat-lady’s rats that we’d visit at the pet store. Those rats would do anything you wanted, after a little belly massage. Who wouldn’t? But rats like to be handled and played with and they are good parents. I for one, had no compunction about selling baby rats to pet stores for snake food.

Typically we’d get rid of the old pair and all but two of the babies. Once, we kept two boys and a girl. I felt obligated to the little gray fellow, after he escaped for two days and collapsed, near death, in the laundry sink. When that little gray rat birthed the second of our litters to arrive in one week— and the same week as every other domestic rat in the metropolitan area birthed—I knew that rat sexing was not my strong suit. The pet stores all turned us down and the population explosion was terrifying for all of us.My daughter had become totally bored by the whole little-animal-thing. It was time to be done with it. At 4:30 one Friday, when the Audubon society said they would take all the rats for their injured raptors, we loaded up the car and got the lead and the rats out. Pet free at last, at least until the killer bunny.

 

 Small Pets: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (80)

How a business encounter can turn into a deep revelation in one small comment.

 

 Dog Hair in My Coat: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (119)

Sometimes we run around like a chicken with it’s head cut off–sometimes like a mad dog. What an animal! Mad Dog revisited.

 

 Mad Dog: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (108)