Food as Pets

Or is it Pets as Food? I'm not quite sure. I believe I left off in my last post that the boys (all 4 of them) were out on an expedition to the Beetle Store to consult with the boss there about their latest aquisitions. As soon as the elevator doors parted to release them back into our apartment, I could hear the frantic excitement as their little feet pounded down the hallway and the combined weight of their small-medium-large boy bodies slammed into the front door bursting it open.

Let me interject here that as part of my being-a-better-mom-to-Josh plan I have tried recently to make sure that no matter what (seemingly to me) nonsense he is prattling on about, I give him 100% attention - I react with nothing more than mild or pleasant surprise to anything he tells me and I ask the follow-up questions that show my love and concern as a parent - no matter how bored and/or repulsed I am by whatever he is telling me. "No kidding?" (here my eybrows raise with polite interest) "So, what you're telling me is that the rat's insides were spread across the whole sidewalk? Whew! That must have been something to see, no?"

So, when I heard their arrival I was hurrying to quickly affix my "politely interested" facial expression in preparation for whaterver nightmarish (to bugphobic me) tales they had to tell. Unfortunatley, on this particular occasion, I was just a nanosecond too slow and before I had my benign expression fixed firmly in place, Josh explodes into the computer room. "Ohmigod Mom!" he begins breathlessly, "the boss from the beetle store?" and I know already I'm in trouble. "He's got a beetle larvae?" and I know something shockingly awful is to follow and yet at the same time I realize that I am absolutely powerless to stop it or even hope to react with any level of appropriateness. "Uhuh?" is all I can manage. "It's as big as Dad's penis!" he cries triumphantly and I am instantly overcome with equal parts hilarity and horror. "And as thick, too!" And I ask you, how on earth I am supposed to perform my marital duty with that image fixed in my mind?!?

Which brings us to today's topic. In my house, not only am I the only one who doesn't have a beetle larvae between her legs, I'm also the lone voice of reason about the pet issue. Jason, my co-parent and staunch supporter has deserted me and joined Team Puppy. I've come to think of myself actually as The Anti-Puppy. The way I'm portrayed you'd think I were against moms, apple pies, sunshine - anything smacking of good and decency and there I am on the opposite side trying to crush it with my powers of darkness. Eight mournful brown eyes staring at me imploringly. I've taken to carrying around a list of solid fact-based reasons why we cannot ever get a puppy just so they can never catch me unprepared.

I don't know how long I can keep it up. They've already managed to somehow get the beetles in here. And then there are Jason and Jay's morning jaunts to the market that inevitably lead to a new "food as pets" extravaganza. Many of you reading this will most likely recall an email I sent out a few months back about the loach. The one that was carried around in a plastic bag half-full of water until the loach (holiu in Taiwanese) finally gave up and became ginger loach soup for Daddy.

There is, as you can imagine, a certain amount of emotional distress (for humans and loaches alike) in this whole "pets as food" process. Noone who was present at the scene will soon forget the agonized howls of anguish which accompanied the capture and subsequent filleting of the giant walleye last summer. And yet - here is the hardest part for me to get my brain around - when it comes time to actually ingest the pet, the ones who cried with the greatest gusto are the ones most enthusiastically stuffing breaded morsels of former pet into their mouths.

Most recently there has been a catfish (pictured above in our bathtub in the "pet" stage of his visit with us) a "fragrant fish" - don't know the English name - and a crab. The crab sat pleasantly in a pot of water on the kitchen floor blowling bubbles as he slowly and methodically filled the pot with his own waste. The boys stopped in every fifteen minutes or so to taunt him and see how close they could get to its pincers without getting "pinced."

When I staggered into the kitchen the next morning, I did blearily note that the only thing in the pot was floating tendrils of crab poo. Of course, I assumed that Jason had decided to freeze the poor mite in the name of pet - I mean food freshness. Only after I returned from school was I regaled with the tale of the search for, recapture of, and then boiling and consumption of our poor pet crab. "Mommy!" Jayden exclaimed, "Crap in my tum! Crap in my tum!" After Jason supplied the missing details, I got it. "Oh? Do you have yummy crab meat in your tummy? Hmmm...I thought that crab was your friend..." "No Mommy. Yummy crap." My eyebrows arch up with maternal concern and kindness. This time I am able to come up with an appropriate facial expression. "Oh good sweetie." I croon in a faltering voice, "That's so nice."

Tune in next week for an installment I'm tentatively calling "Slice of Fried Puppy"