I just killed my girlfriend’s goldfish. The thing is like super dead, floating on its back and everything. Of course, the damn thing had to die on my watch. Shakespeare was the most neglected fish ever. It was swimming in mounds (and I mean mounds) of its own poop, and it hadn’t eaten in like three days (which is kind of where I went wrong– I thought I’d compensate). Definitely, the last time I try and be a hero.

I really suck with pets though. I went through like 8 hamsters when I was little. It got to the point where every birthday and every Christmas I was asking for a new hamster. It was actually quite sad. I look back at my old journals and they all read something like this:

December 21, 1987—I would really like a new hamster for Christmas

December 26, 1987—You’ll never believe what I got this year!! A

hamster!!!

December 16, 1988—I’m asking Santa for a hamster this year

December 28, 1988—My best gift was a hamster. I’m going to call

him Snowball.

February 23, 1989—I hope I get a hamster for my birthday.

In 1989, I switched to gerbils with about the same success rate. What I can’t figure out though is why my parents kept giving me the damn things? I was obviously murdering them left and right. Weren’t they concerned that at some point, the ASPCA would show up at their door: “Eight hamsters and three gerbils dead in 2 years. Sir, you’ve got some explaining to do…”

You know when little girls get a new small animal and they buy it a wheel to run in and toys to chew on and then they get countless hours of joy just watching it. Yeah well, the most fun I ever got from my hamsters was naming them and deciding where to bury them. Heck, it even got to the point where I ran out of names for them. Hence, “Snowball 1” and “Snowball 2″ (the fun continues). I feel like at some point my parents should have maybe gotten me hooked on something that was a little hardier. Something that could survive being squished in the door or sat on by my fat ass brother or in one really unfortunate case, being dropped out of a car window (I wanted him to see how fast we were moving). Alright, I guess nothing could have survived the car window thing, but maybe they could have at least gotten me something that was a little easier to hold onto– something really big, like a German Shepherd.

Anyways to make a long story short, I let my girlfriend read my old journals and now, whenever we’re at the pet store, she steers me clear of the small animal section. I really thought I had maybe gotten better in the last 20 years and was actually thinking it might be nice to bring a “Snowball 3″ into our home; but now, looking at Shakespeare’s little lifeless body, I’m willing to concede that maybe I was wrong.