| Pet progression (17) | Thursday, Jan 3, 2008 2:35 pm |
In order to prepare for having children, I think it's a good idea to practice with pets. The order should go like this:
- Fish
- Rodent
- Cat
- Dog
- Human
Each animal requires more responsibility and a bigger financial and time commitment. Fish are easy. They just swim around in their bowl. The only care they really need is daily food and weekly fresh water. But you can buy an automatic feeder, which essentially reduces your commitment to a weekly water swap. Not bad.
Rodents are a little more complicated because their waste products don't float away like a fish's. So we're talking about a daily feeding and a weekly cage cleaning. Easy. And of course there's the automatic feeder option.
Cats can do one more thing than fish and rodents: Puke. In addition to daily feeding (or an automatic feeder) and bi-weekly litter box cleaning, there's the occasional hairball cleanup or "I puke when I get excited" responsibility. Not pretty.
Dogs can do one more thing than cats, rodents, and fish: Make an unbelievable amount of noise for no reason at all. Also, dogs will eat until they die, so an automatic feeder is out of the question. Some additional "benefits" of dog ownership: Dogs need to be walked; dogs slobber; dogs stink; dogs stick their noses in your crotch; dogs stick their tongues in my ear. I don't like dogs.
Humans (a.k.a. babies) are the sum of the worst traits of each animal: They require daily feeding (and not just once or twice a day like an animal). They puke, often for no reason at all. They make an unbelievable amount of noise for no reason at all. Humans need one more thing which dogs, cats, rodents, and fish don't: Attention/affection. Otherwise you'll have therapy bills in the future.
For the record, Wendy and I both had rodents when we were kids. We had a fish when we were first married, but he went to a better place. We have two cats. We're planning on skipping the dog phase because I can't stand dogs. The next move is to get a real live human. Someday.
Linked: Bunnius Maximus (comment)
Don't forget step 4.5: Watching other people's young children for extended periods of time. This has to be done gratis in order to get the full understanding of the ROI. I know a few in your Bible Study who may be willing to help in this area.
I sort of do that already. My first experience was in the church nursery, where I had the privilege of changing my first diaper. What a Sunday. The other [ongoing] experience is being around my nephew whose only noise is called "scream-like-a-banshee-who-caught-on-fire-and-is-slowly-melting". As his mother (my sister-in-law) says, it's the best form of birth control.
I can't keep a fish alive for more than 1 week. Guess the rest are out of the question!
Rus - check out the nursery experience: http://ddhr.org/2005/09/22/diapers/
Another laugh-out-loud-at-work blog entry.
Shelley - start with plants...
What if one has killed plants?
Go with a pet rock. If you kill that, please refrain from ever reproducing.
man..
Last October, I went straight to 5 without any prior experience since I never had a pet rock, fish, rodent (uh, disgusting), cat or dog (although my parents had a rotweiler). Despite this, my baby is alive and kicking. Does that make me a prodigy? According to Wendy, it does!
You should probably get a few pets to make up for it.
i think most people get rid of 1-4 after having 5. so maybe alberto is like doogie howser (i.e. prodigy) - he skipped grades 1-4 and went straight to 5th!
...It's too late in the game. Once you have a human you barely have time to feed yourself, let alone a pet. As you hint in your blog, having a 5 is equivalent in terms of work as dealing with 1+2+3+4...
And for those of you who have one 5 and are thinking about another one; do not fall into the misconception (pardon the pun) that your work will double. It quadruples!!
Ok, here's "having a 5" according to Maitena (a really funny cartoonist from Argentina - highly recommend it by the way). She says that there are "ONLY" 6 things that having a baby deprives you of (please see link below to see the cartoon, which I translate below because it's in Spanish):
1) Sitting down: "ok baby, I'll hold you...but why do I have to stay standing..."
2) Talking: a woman on the phone while holding a baby that cannot stop crying. She yells over the phone "STOOOOOOOOPPPPPP"...then apologising to her friend and saying "no, no, I was not talking to you".
3) Using the toilet: a guy in a suit walks into the room and his wife holds the baby out for him to take the baby and tells him "Finally. Hold her would you?"
4) Reading: A baby cries in the background and the lady thinks to herself while trying to read: "it's the 4th time I'm reading the same line".
5) Eating: Husband calling his wife to dinner while she's holding the baby..."yeah, in a minute, let me change her diapers, put her to sleep and I'll be there...doesn't matter anyways I had the baby's baby food leftovers".
6) Sleeping: Middle of the night. Baby crying out of his mind in another room and the lady gets up and starts crying in desperation right by her bed.
For lack of a better place to post the picture of her cartoon image, I copy pasted the link below. It's pretty funny and definitely true, I think...
http://contradiccions.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/maitena-bebe.jpg
Alberto, you're a scary dude. That is scaring the crap out of me, right now! I guess, I should start w/ a rock.
haha! I didn't mean to scare anyone, the benefits of having a child way outweigh the downside, trust me!!!!!!!
You think some of the celebrities went through your protocol, Dave? As in 1..2..3.. KID.
Hm, one wonders.