motherhood

People who treat their pets like children used to frighten me. Not because I don't like them or animals but because I worry about their capacity to love people, specifically people who are me. This is a weird worry because I don't really know these people and will probably never be at their house for Christmas. I guess it's a survival instinct. If we were all living in caves, I wouldn't trust these people to help me hunt caribou. They might come out and rattle a spear with me, but they'd be hunting for someone other than the tribe, specifically, they'd not be hunting for the parts of the tribe that are my hungry belly.

Or... this is what I used to think. Until Bruno.

Bruno is not my child and I will never think of him like that, but I kind of get the pet-as-child scenario. You give the pet all this love and care and they treat you like a possession and demand more food. Children do that. Then they leave you or disappoint you or get hit by cars. I'm serious. This is heart-wrenching, gut-slugging stuff and it's rotten especially when the child and/or pet doesn't even let you get a full night's sleep.

Enter Bruno. I will probably keep him. The church has breathed an expensive "OK." But, my goodness, if he doesn't let me sleep all through the night soon, he's getting the boot into a cold, dark, lonely world. If I let him in the bedroom, he prowls around, sucks on the blankets and tries to sleep on my throat(hard to breathe). If I lock him out, he's fine for about 10 minutes and then he starts yowling. And doesn't stop. I was raised with the principle that you let petulant, screaming babies scream when they're going down for a nap and you don't give into the tyrannical whims of dogs and cats because they've got to learn they're not the center of the universe. It's just difficult dealing with a creature that doesn't care and doesn't feel shame.

Dogs, for the most part, will to please. You direct the weather in their lives and they are simply wind vanes. If you are displeased, they cower. They tiptoe around. They hang their heads. Cats, I'm learning, are different. They don't care. They're God and you're just a can-opener. When Bruno curls on my lap and extends one front paw out to rest on my chest, I don't take it as a gesture of love. Rather, he's like a rich man running his fingers down the hood of his Porsche. He looks at me with those lidded blue eyes and says, "You're mine." As long as I keep running smoothly, he'll keep me. To him, my existence says more about his existence.

I'm not sure how to feel about it. I don't think I like it.

So the experiment continues.