When I was about three, some friends of my parents had a kitten. We went to their house to pick it up and I got my first pet. We named her Tabby Owna, or just Tabby for short.
It was nice to have a pet around the house. Even at the age of three it was my job to feed her, but I don’t remember ever doing so. I suppose my mother got stuck with that task when I didn’t do it.
One day I was on the roof with my dad, watching him work up there. He though it would be fun if we had Tabby on the roof with us. So the next time he went down to get a tool, he brought Tabby up with him. I guess I wanted to test out the idea that cats will always land on their feet. So after a few minutes I picked her up and threw her off the roof. Dad made me get off the roof after that.
We had Tabby for several years, but then she just turned up missing. We never saw her again after that, and we sadly concluded that she was hit by a car somewhere. Several years later we got anotner cat. we named her Tabby Owna Loveless the Second, in honor of our first Tabby.
We had many pets over the years. Goldfish, hamsters, mice, parakeets, a snake (for just a little while), bugs, worms, and a monster named Semore, an imaginary pet we had. But the pet that I won’t forget is a gerbil named Melanhead.
At the same time I was starting piano lessons, I found out that I was going to get a gerbil. I had never heard of such a creature. When I first learned about them, I thought the way to pronounce the word was with a soft g-sound like the ‘Ger’ in Gerber baby food. But everyone I talked to after that said it should be pronounced with a hard g or j-sound. Even though I was in the minority, I still called my pet a gerbil with a soft g-sound.
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