July 30, 2002

My son, Nick, and I just spent two weeks vacationing in the southern isles of Florida. We left the house and its non-vacationing occupants in the trusty hands of his father, aka my best friend, Gary.

While on vacation, we checked in daily to see how things were back on the homefront. Nothing eventful brewing in the northeast, but the pigs (aka our two very spoiled pet guinea pigs, Wilson and Iggy) were driving him nuts with their incessant “weeping”. The weeping noise (which sounds like loud squeals) is usually indicative of a hungry pig. We typically feed them twice a day, with pre-packaged guinea pig food in the morning, and fresh salad greens et al in the evening.

Dad tells us the pigs are always hungry. All they have to hear is the rustle of a plastic bag, which will send them into happy fits of flitting and jumping around, and weeping.

Well, the two weeks pass by, and we make our journey back home — anxious to be home again. After finally walking in the door at 1:30 in the morning, we set aside our luggage, briefly catch up on hello’s and current events, and proceeded to check on the pets, and the house in general. As I peeked into the pigs’ cages, I noticed something peculiar.

“Gar, have you been feeding the pigs their food in the mornings?” I asked. “Yes,” he tells me. “WHAT have you been feeding them?” I inquire. “The food in the green bag,” he says. “Gar, that’s kitty litter. (Nick is rolling laughing!!) Didn’t you see the picture of the cat on the bag?” I asked. “I saw flowers and thought it was just to make the food smell better,” he says, trying not to, but barely containing the laughter as well.

Nick and I are hysterically laughing (so’s Gar). It turns out, instead of the pig’s pre-packaged food which was in the container next to their cages, he’d been feeding them Feline Pine, which is a pelleted kitty litter. He then goes on to tell us he was wondering why they weren’t eating it. I dump the suspect contents of Wilson’s and Iggy’s food bowls and refill them with the proper food, which they greedily and happily gobble up.

It was also about this time that I look around and discover Peaches, my fairly large (and expensive) hybrid parrot cichlid, isn’t in his fish tank. I start to ask what happened to him, when …

“He died,” Gar tells me. “I reckon you tried to feed him kitty litter, too?” I say.

He goes on to tell me he came in one night, went to feed the animals, and couldn’t find Peaches. Happily, he thought to himself, well there’s one less pet to feed. Later on, he found Peaches lying on the bottom of the tank and, with an undersized net (Peaches was 8-1/2 inches long), scooped him out.

Peaches was not a well-liked fish in my household. Aggressive and nasty, he still was a source of great entertainment. Although the cause of death has not been established, it is believed to be due to a vitamin deficiency caused by a lack of light. The bulb in his tank had burned out prior to our departure, and we hadn’t picked up a replacement before leaving.

The next morning, we took Peaches’ remains (which Gar had so “carefully” placed in a plastic baggie and thrown on the back porch) to properly dispose of him — with my son throwing the baggie under the trash dumpster.

So much for an eulogy.

More CAMoDI…… [ next ]

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