Walter Leland Cronkite Jr.
Yesterday after work, I found myself in PetSmart talking to the woman who worked there about mice and hamsters. We stepped into the little room to access the cages so that I could handle the rodents.
I’m not really sure why I suddenly wanted a pet. I used to keep ladybugs, caterpillars and inch worms up until my parents consented and bought me a hamster. This started despite living in a home of three cats and a dog.
So I had decided that in addition to my roommate’s super needy cat and my betta fish, I wanted a mouse. But then, on a whim, we opened the gerbil cage. Upon being woken, they climbed right over to find out what was going on, and even crawled into my hand without urging.
Naturally, I returned to the pet store today and came home with one starter cage set, some chew sticks and a gerbil named Walter Leland Cronkite Jr.
But as Tadpole tore through the apartment with her tail puffed, angry at being locked out of my room and Walter sat thumping his feet until I gave him a tea box to hide in, I can’t help feeling the cage and responsibility are too big.
It’s not that I can’t handle a pet. He’s already got a container of chopped up veggies in the fridge. It’s more that now I can’t just pack up my car and go. This feeling has been building up slowly, but somehow Walter seems to embody all of that, the physical manifestation sitting on my dresser.
I guess I’ll just enjoy my new pet and not worry about that for right now. You can trust when he wakes up, his photos are going to be everywhere.
