Okay, don't. Whatever. The fact is, I don't care what you call me. I don't even know you. The reverse, of course, is also true: you don't know me.

Because you don't know me, you don't know about the change. I'm talking sea change here, mega-transformation. I'm talking about my personal metamorphosis from happy go-lucky, pet-free man, to (you guessed it), the chicken man. Like Eddie Arnold's Oliver Douglas in Green Acres, (actually, more like his wife Lisa, played by Eva Gabor), I'm finding myself, very much against my will, being turned away from civilization and toward... Hooterville.

You see, having grown up essentially a product of an urban-suburban environment, my childhood was relatively normal. Pet-wise, I had a dog, actually three, though at different times. I love dogs. I once had a guinea pig that bit the hand that fed it, and later, what started as two, but quickly became several dozen gerbils, none of whom looked anything like Yankees coach Don Zimmer. Several of the gerbils, like the hamster, bit the hand that fed it (mine, in case you haven't been paying attention) when they weren't eating their young (who knew?).

Da-da-da-DA-da, DUM DUM!

Since moving from suburban Boston to New Hampshire last year to take a job on a daily newspaper, my life has developed a somewhat more bucolic tilt.

Of course, it all has to do with having kids (they also bite). Naturally, kids want pets, and my wife (hereinafter to be referred to as THE PARTY OF THE SECOND PART) wanted to indulge them. I say she wanted to indulge them, but that desire had its limits. Specifically, its limit was picking up dog crap and having various furnishings chewed to pieces. So she decided we would have cats.

Da-da-da-DA-da, DUM DUM!

The cats were a bad idea from the start. Not to be one to say, "I told you so," but "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" That was for my wife. You see, I have allergies. That is to say, I'm allergic to cats. My wife knew this. She knew it from the time we started seeing each other and has often seen the effect cats have on me. It is not pretty. My eyes water and slowly puff until they close. I sneeze. My nose runs. My asthma kicks in and I begin to wheeze and suck air. Had I recently taken out a huge life insurance policy on myself, naming her sole beneficiary, I might have understood what she was thinking. As it was, I was clueless (I know, you're thinking I must be to have agreed to this, but it was my own stupid way of making a point).

Anyway, the cats are gone. We gave them away after three months, when I ended up in the hospital.

They were just the start. Unfortunately, my allergies don't extend to other creatures.

Da-da-da-DA-da, Da-da-da-DA-da, Da-da-da-DA-da, DUM DUM!

"...Chinese sucking fish."

For a while we were okay with just fish. Did I mention the fish? Well, the fish started several years ago. Actually, they were my idea. I read somewhere that watching fish lowers stress levels, and figured they'd be low-maintenance. We started with seven, of varying kinds. Again, they immediately began eating each other (what IS it with that, anyway?) until we had four left, all variations of something called tetras, which is Greek for four, so I guess that figured. After about a year, we decided to keep them until they kicked, then ditch the tank. That was four years ago, and they're still going strong. We later got two more fish, but only because the tank was looking pretty slimy. These were something the pet store guy said were called Chinese sucking fish. They did a good job cleaning the algae off the tank, but have the personalities of rocks.

A few months after the cats left, we bought two more fish, but one was pregnant and two extras (babies) got in the water from the pet store by accident. Then the momma fish gave birth to 10 more and we put them and the other two babies in a special netted section of the tank so they wouldn't get eaten by the tetras. Last week, I looked in the netted area, and there were about a dozen more smaller babies in there, and now I don't know how to stop it from becoming a tiny fish version of Plato's Retreat.

Greeeeeen Acres is the place to be.

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