Requiescat En Pace, Gerbillus.

Today (or, fair enough, tomorrow) would be a good day to remember all your past pets, wouldn’t it? Don’t they deserve a little fond reminiscing, especially if it’s been years or even decades since you last thought of them?

I’ve mentioned Brandy and Sloopy, the family beagles, elsewhere in my writings, so a quick here’s-to-ya for them. But I also had a succession of rodents as a boy, the first being a pair of gerbils I had in the first grade whom I named Felix and Oscar.

I can’t say I recall them that fondly, like “Oh, that Felix, he sure did hog the water bottle after a long workout on the wheel!” Mostly I remember the fuzzy little fuckers noisily clamoring to get out of their cage, which they often did no matter how many clips I secured their wire lid with. I even resorted to stacking school books on top of the cage, but still they found a way to squeeze their chubby asses up and out, invariably making their way into the closet.

I do remember well the many nights spent pulling toy after toy from that closet and at last scooping up the biting bastards. Then, at some point much later, my brothers and I would get a yen for a monotonous round of Monopoly or Payday, and I’d retrieve the game to find half the money chewed to shreds and a hundred tiny turds stuck to the board.

Yeh, I remember those gerbils well. Little fuckers.

No gerbils of your own to mourn? Go here and pay your rodentia respects.