I suppose you’ve heard there are two types of persons in the world: You’re either a cat person or a dog person. As with my political affiliation, I’m an independent person, or maybe I should say, an animal person. My sister and I grew up with both cats and dogs, plus hamsters, turtles, and any other type of critter that entered our lives, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. My sister brought home all types of animal life, whether snakes, rabbits, mice, birds, or wallabies. She even had a leech that she kept in a shot glass on her dresser until one day when my mother didn’t notice she’d accidentally spilled some hand lotion in the glass. Because leeches don’t have hands, they don’t take well to hand lotion, and the leech went to wherever leeches go when they die.
After my sister was married, she and her first husband lived in a basement apartment. There she was feeding and watering a large water bug that would come out at night in the laundry room. That lasted until the evening her unaware husband stepped on it. She didn’t speak to him for nearly a week. Some years later after she was divorced and remarried, she picked up a mangy German Shepherd stray that would barely fit in her Mustang. She brought him home and gave him a bath. When my wife and I dropped over, the dog growled and chased my wife out of the apartment and down the stairs. I should have let her keep going. It would have saved me divorce money down the road.
When I was young, one dog we owned had an aversion to plastic models in an unmolested, pristine condition, although I preferred them that way. She chewed up and mostly devoured every airplane, custom auto, and rocket model I’d built. I’m not sure why. Maybe her ancestors had fed upon or were attacked by newly-emerging plastic model forms of life in the days following the end of the dinosaurs. Plastic models were much larger and more ferocious than those around us today, so the fear in my dog was understandable.
Given a choice, I would have an elephant for a pet even though they’re generally not thought of as cozy lap-sitters such as a cat or small dog because after one lap sit, it’s over. I became fond of elephants because of my sister and brother-in-law who traveled with many circuses and eventually owned one (not an elephant, a circus…although I guess they owned many…not circuses, elephants). Elephants are friendly, gentle, smart, and big. Really big.
Once when my parents were visiting the circus, my father brought a plastic bag of tomatoes from his garden for the elephants. When he was feeding one elephant, the next in line reached over with her trunk, picked up the bag of tomatoes, and chucked it in her mouth. After a bit of munching, she spit out the empty bag. To compensate for his loss of his enjoyment feeding tomatoes to the rest of the elephants, my sister sent my father home with two bags filled with elephant poop for his garden.
Another time, at the start of a matinee show, a guy in a seat near the tent entrance was immersing himself in Kodak moments. When the elephants paraded in, one of them reached over, grabbed his camera and ate it. The guy never waited around to see when his camera saw daylight again or what kind of snapshots might be on the film. Must’ve been a cheap camera.
Having a pet as big as an elephant takes some getting used to, though. Between shows outside a Pennsylvania town, I was talking with the elephant trainer. This circus lot was on the outskirts of a large forest preserve. The trainer untied Esther, the oldest and largest of the elephants, to give her a bit of free time to wander around. She took advantage of it and walked off into the woods and disappeared. The trainer didn’t seem worried. After a few minutes he called and whistled. In the distance I heard a bellow, or a trumpet, or a tuba, whatever the sound is that elephants make. Soon the ground rumbled when Esther came trotting back to us. I can only imagine what picnickers on the other side of the woods thought seeing what was heading for their picnic basket.
During that same trip, my sister wanted me to take her picture with the elephants, so she stood between two. When they’re shackled and eating hay or Purina® Elephant Chow (just the elephants, not my sister. She prefers Purina Sister Chow), they gently sway back and forth. When I was ready to take the picture, the elephants happened to sway toward each other. My sister disappeared, squashed by elephant stomachs. I thought she would end up as road kill. But when the elephants swayed apart, she emerged not as road kill but breathing hard, merely looking like road kill.
Speaking of road kill, one big advantage of having a pet elephant is that you’ll never have to worry about losing it under the wheels of a Toyota. Instead, one home…maybe.