Not Franciscan Material

I have been writing some pretty heavy duty stuff lately so today I thought I would write something silly. It actually stems from a comment that one of my followers left on my last post. Sr. Ann Marie thought I sounded Franciscan and in some ways I probably am. But I would totally fail St. Francis 101 when it comes to the animal thing.

Okay. It's not that I hate animals or anything. I like them in the zoo, or a park, or in someone else's home, but I do not like animals in my house. Unfortunately, my husband does. Dave grew up with animals in his house, mostly dogs, although I think there may have been some birds in there, and the frog that came for a visit and ended up flying over the back fence, but that is for another time. Suffice to say, he loves animals in the house. I do not.

Over the years we have had many. He started me off slow. There were the little salamanders that we had to buy crickets for. I liked them because they were contained, and I didn't have to clean their doo doo. Unfortunately, my hubby barely has time to gulp down his own food, much less travel to a pet store to buy the crickets. And no way was I going to go and pick out the munch and crunch for those things. They actually have small, medium and large crickets. Do you want a pepsi with that?

Gone. Then there were guinea pigs that squealed every time I opened the front door and walked through it. They knew that I was the one that fed them. So they would hear me, smell me, or just hope to goodness gracious it was me, and then they would make the most annoying sounds to get me to feed them. They also liked to kick up the stuff you put on the bottom of their cage to sleep and poop on. Do you know how many times I almost broke my neck racing to get to a crawling baby who thought he or she had lucked out and found a small chocolate nugget within their reach? Yeah, not so good.

Blessedly, they don't live real long. Bye bye guinea pigs. We had two dogs. The first one had "issues", and ended up nipping at poor John Paul who was just a toddler. The second one was just a puppy who came from a bad litter, dad was a German Shepherd, mom was a Beagle, and well, just think about that hook up folks. Didn't make for good puppies. Jack was out of control, a nippy kind of dog that the children ran from. No one ever wanted to take him out or basically do anything with him. It was awful. Again, my husband who doesn't have time to tie his own shoes, really didn't have time to train this thing, and hey, I had seven kids at the time, I did not have time for the dog. No one except for my hubby and the oldest were sad to see him go. I had to keep him in the garage to protect the kids so they really didn't bother with him. Three months after he was driven down the long country road to the SPCA, Mary at the dinner table asked us, "Hey, where's Jack?" Uh, Mary, he's been gone for three months. Yes, real observant that one.

We have had a bearded dragon. The cricket problem again. Nuff said.

Now we have cats. I intensely dislike them. That's all cats do is lick themselves. Everywhere. It's gross. Their cat litter is near my laundry area, and I kid you not, the one cat, does her business every time I am downstairs doing laundry. They eat like pigs and when it comes out, ooh, not smelling so good. So there I am , the one who can't stand animals in the house, doing every one's laundry and smelling the cat's well, you know what. Cats are not like dogs. Cats think it's okay to climb up on your counters and dining room table. Cause they can. Dogs can't do that and give up trying. Cats don't care if you are coming after them with a kitchen knife in one hand and the food processor in the other, they will look back at you and when you can almost reach them they run away and hide under the couch. And then when you are a safe distance they will come out, perch themselves and their stinky butts on the top of your couch, and commence licking themselves.

My plan is to outlive them all, especially my husband and the cats. Then I will move into a nice, neat, little apartment that will smell of cinnamon and baked cookies.

And if I die before them, well, look for me next to the incense. I am determined to have the best smelling spot in heaven.

St. Francis pray for us.