In Which We Further Remember Our Animal Friends

Writing about Fishy on Wednesday got me thinking about some of my other past pets; there aren't many.  I was in either Kindergarten or 1st Grade, I can't remember, but my teacher gave each of us a garden snail for a science project.  My mother was not happy about this, as she had a pretty strict "NO PETS" policy after our Golden Retriever, Katie, died when I was four.  The teacher calmed her down by assuring her that my snail would live no more than a year.  He beat those expectations and died with one week.

It was my fault, entirely.  I named him Snaily (my creativity knew no bounds) and, just like Fishy, I carried him around with me wherever I went.  So, I took him into the bathroom with me one day, and I accidentally left the faucet running.  I guess Snaily was looking for a drink, but the power of the water coming out of the faucet crushed his fragile shell.  I was horrified and devastated.  Snaily's death was not that long after Fishy, and this time there was no denying my culpability.  I was in tears, so my mom called the teacher who told her not to worry, as they had plenty of new snails.  I guess I accepted this readily enough—little kids bounce back fast—and I gave my new snail the exact same name as the old one.

While old Snaily lived for less than a week, new Snaily is the pet that I had for the longest, so far.  Much to my mom's chagrin, Snaily managed to live for over seven years.  He lived on all the fanciest lettuces, left over from our meals, as well as plenty of chalk to help strengthen his shell (I learned my lesson from old Snaily).

I had a lot of fun with Snaily.  I gave him colored chalk to see what that would do (it made his poop the same color as the chalk!)  I put him on our glass dining room table and watched the muscle in his belly as it moved him along, or his tiny mouth as it gummed at whatever food was in front of him.  I used to let him slime all over my hand, and I swore for a while that he was more likely to come out of his shell if he knew it was my palm he was resting on.

Recently, my brother made the accusation that I never really cared about Snaily and that our nanny, Hazel, was the one who really took care of him.  Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like my family has some kind of resentment towards all of my pets… I'm not sure what that means.  At any rate, I did take care of Snaily.  Maybe I wasn't always the one who washed his lettuce and put it in his terrarium, but I loved him and I spent time with him and he lived in my room.  When I was in 3rd Grade, we had to make our own family crests; mine had a picture of a snail on it and said, "A Great Pet Is a Glory."  When Snaily finally died of extreme old age, Hazel and I took him into Central Park and buried him under a tree.  We bowed our heads and I felt a heaviness in my heart.  Snaily saw me through my childhood and into the beginnings of adolescence, and he will always have a special place in my past.