Woof. Chirp. Meow. These are common sounds house pets make. Or maybe we should ask the real experts: college kid know-it-all's who actually have pets at school. I'm not just talking about the fleet of rodents that come gratis with every Campus Apartments lease either.
Unless you have a hamster and you happen to live in South Dakota, or you took your llama breeding business public in high school, pet ownership is not an extracurricular that will assure you a place in the Ivies. Nor is it an intellectual feat. Yet these cocky Cocker Spaniel owners are part of an elite breed at Penn that are making the rest of us look bad.
I have enough trouble keeping myself alive, much less voluntarily sustaining the life of another. I blame the conspiracy of photosynthesis for the jaundiced bamboo plant wilting defiantly on my desk right now. I don't even have the patience for that little mutt yapping at the corner of this Word document. (No offense, but let's be logical here. If I needed help I would ask the break dancing computer icon, not a canine -- even if he can talk.)
So how do they do it?
In honor of my friends' dead lizard Igbo, and pointless curiosity, I decided to Scooby-Doo this one out. Nevertheless, my investigation obediently heeled as soon as it began, given that the sources I tried to contact with pets were either still in mourning or searching for their lost companions.
Take for example my roommate Jalousie who harbored her family's kitten Trixie for three weeks last semester. A textbook example of why kittens and pot do not mix. No, she didn't "Alf" the kitty during an aggressive case of the munchies. Jalousie loved Trixie. But, when she smoked too much kitty litter, she also loved everyone else. And loving led to sharing. And sharing led to groggy Sunday morning cat hunts.
Jalousie usually found Trixie, just as I likewise discovered fascinating (and sometimes horrifying) details about this whole pet epidemic. For example, not only is breeding Chinchillas the badass black market activity on beige block these days, but more disturbingly, College pets have invaded the biggest disease of all -- thefacebook.com. I can only imagine the consequences of facebooking the A's boy you don't remember hooking up with the night before and finding out he is a dog, literally. Even if a frat brother's pup has a profile, brother Louise Hart isn't sure if he's pokeable enough for the hall. Hart explains, "He kinda has his nose up all the time. But he also might be just be smelling things. Either way it can be condescending."
Yet, maybe this attitude is about the fact that Penn is not the most pet friendly environment. For reasons other than both urban and drunken sprawl of the campus. We don't even have an animal as our mascot. I don't know if you've ever seen a pasty historical figure pitted up against a tiger, but trust me, fierce rhetoric isn't gonna get you out of that one. Other than some new skills, like wielding some cool weapons I thought of for Ben like an electrocuting Kite, or jousting with a quill pen that is also a dagger (patent pending). Ben needs a pet -- for protection and companionship.
Since dragons are purportedly high maintenance -- and also fictional -- a good old black bear would do the trick. Not only are they intimidating, but they are usually also named Ben, which is a plus. Or, maybe just a snake for Ben to lasso the other mascots with while riding Ben. But this brings me back to my original quandary: who will take care of these creatures? If you know of any dragon-handlers just send them my way, and tell them I'll trade them a cat for their services.
