By: Kent McCarty
Throughout my life, my family has had many pets, all of which have failed to earn my affection. Between all of the cats and dogs we’ve gone through, all of them have done nothing but push me closer to the edge of my sanity. When I was six, however, I convinced myself that I needed a bird. That year for Christmas I begged my parents mercilessly to let Santa bring me my very own parakeet. Unfortunately, we had a cat at the time, and everyone knows that cats and birds don’t get along. In the end, however, my parents pulled through and a bird was waiting on me by the tree when I woke up Christmas morning. I named him Tweety and for the next four years we were best friends. When my youngest brother was born and I had to give Tweety up, I had an extremely hard time saying goodbye, and I attribute that to a main cause of my hatred for domesticated animals.. The one thing that helped me get through the ordeal was knowing that I had so many fond memories with my little friend. At least, that’s what I thought until Thanksgiving Day when my parents filled me in a long kept secret: Tweety wasn’t always Tweety.
When I heard this, I can honestly say it was the first time in my life when I was speechless. After it finally sank in, my mom explained to me what exactly had happened. When Tweety was one year old, he died for no apparent reason. My mom said that she walked into the laundry room and found Tweety lying on the bottom of the cage, feet in the air. I was at a friend’s house at the time, so my parents decided the best way to handle the situation was to make a quick run to the pet store and buy me a new bird that was identical to Tweety. After the imposter was in place, my parents decided to give the late Tweety a proper burial that consisted of placing him in a box and dropping it off in the dumpster behind Sunflower. When I returned home, life continued as it normally would have. When I asked my mom why Tweety looked a little different, she simply said that he had “molted.” While at first this may seem like a nice thing to do for a young child, if they had told me Tweety was dead and gone and left it at that, I wouldn’t have had to deal with letting him go after four years. I also wouldn’t have wasted three years of my life caring for a bird that had no business being in my house.
With this shocking revelation, I’ve started to question everything about my life. How do I know these people who have lied to me about a beloved pet for over eight years are my actual parents and not evil clones straight out of an episode of Fringe?
