This Is An Ex-Parrot! UPDATED

Growing up we always had pets.  We never had more than one pet at a time, but over the years we slowly churned through a litany of domestic animals, including fish, rabbits, parakeets, dogs, and several turtles.

I don’t remember the first dog or the fish.  We had to give the dog away when I was an infant; it was tired of playing second-fiddle to the new baby and soon grew moody and vengeful.  After that there were some fish, but they had the lasting power of an ice-cream cone on a windy day.  It was probably for the best seeing as I don’t have a good history with fish anyways. 

No, the first pet I remember having was a rabbit.  He was a brown bunny named Harvey. Or was it Ardie? Or maybe Arby?

Hasenpfeffer?

I liked the bunny quite a bit.  He lived in a pen in the garage, and his greatest talent seemed to be pooping. Unfortunately, we soon learned that I was allergic to rabbits, including Arby.  So one day I went (sneezing) into my garage, but my bunny was nowhere to be found.  My parents explained that Arby was making me sick, so Dad found a nice meadow in the woods for him to live in with the other rabbits.

Later I found out dad just drove down the road, and deposited Arby on the side of the road.

Dear Dad, 

I do not think you thought your cunning plan all the way through.

To appease my broken heart, my parents went out and bought my sister and I a couple of parakeets.  They bought the child, who was already allergic to rabbits, a bird.  With feathers.

Dear Mom, 

I do not think you thought your cunning plan all the way through.

The parakeets were named J.J. and Crackers, and I hated them.

Well, hate is a strong word.  But I didn’t like them.  They didn’t do much but make a lot of noise, and bite my fingers when I tried to touch them.  And their poop was downright boring compared to rabbit poop.

So one fateful day, my sister and I came home from school, only to find J.J. snuffed it while we were gone.  My sister’s heart-broken sobs radiated throughout the house, and I?  Well, I didn’t care.  I’m pretty sure I went on to eat a bowl of Cookie Crisp and play with my Rainbow Brite doll.

A week or so later, Crackers left us as well.  And again, I didn’t care.  I didn’t care for them when they were alive, and I wasn’t sad when they died.  Which makes me wonder, what happened to me so early on in my existence to render my heart so calloused? 

Oh yes, I probably subconsciously remembered an otherwise gentle cocker spaniel that transformed into Cujo in my presence, and my rabbit was released into the wild pitted against a Volvo. 

That wasn’t traumatizing at all.

UPDATE: I have been informed by those with better memories that the rabbit's name was ARTIE.  Oops.  Who wants curly fries?!