Hector and Achilles

We do not have a very good track record with our pets. Our last guinea pig was ceremoniously dumped in the trash can, the pet fish was belly up when we came back from vacation in July, and the beagle puppy "mysteriously disappeared" a few months ago. The only pet we had left was Leigh and she was forever relegated to the garage after the diaretic episodes at 5 in the morning on two occasions. Now, I do my best to forget that we have an animal living in the vicinity. Growing up, my family had one animal after another in our house and it never bothered me. In fact, I was delighted as a girl would be. I never thought I would grow up to hate having animals in my home, but that turned out to be the case. I adore animals......just not in my house. There is a good reason for this non-welcoming feeling. I am the one who has to clean up after them, feed them, and listen to their noise. I already have four boys to do all that for and now I have to do that for an animal? Somehow my patience runs thin much easier and faster for something with fur. After the last pet was gone, except for the dang dog, I announced to the family that I am done. I am done with animal poop forever. I'm tired of guinea pig poop, fish poop, puppy poop, dog poop, and bird poop. Nasty creatures, birds. So, when my husband told me he wanted to get a couple of cockatiels that a lady was giving away for free, I gave him a look of disbelief and then wondered if he had a hearing problem. I do remember that I swore off pets forever and ever, but husband has a soft spot for them and feels the boys need to bond with an animal. I explained to him my problems with birds. I would be the one ending up cleaning their cage and they are noisy. I would spend a lot of time hearing "tweet, tweet", "tweet, tweet" followed by my yelling at them to shut up and give me some peace and quiet. Husband insisted that he or Nathanael would do the cleaning. I snorted in disbelief and put it out of my mind. I forgot about this conversation with my husband and went about my week as normal. Last night, I got back home with the boys from Justin's swimming lesson at around 7:15pm. I greeted my husband who was watering the plants outside, opened the front door, and stopped dead in my tracks. In my living room, were two birds huddled together in a cage. They are gray and white with yellow mohawks and they were scared to death. I came to the conclusion that I am doomed for the rest of my life to have a pet in my house at one time or another. As my husband follows the children into the house, I looked at him with narrowed eyes and said, "I'm not cleaning that cage." I'm such a sweet, little wife.