Monday, June 05, 2006
Dexter's Gone For Good
I meant to post this earlier, but the neighbour's cat ate it. Okay, here's the story. When I was much younger, at the wee little age of 10, I was visiting an aunt's aquarium shop with my family. To cut a potentially long story short, we got a red-eared slider terrapin each. Here's a picture of one (not ours, I never got to taking their pictures):
To cut another long story short, only my turtle, Dexter, survived until today. Last month, something majorly surprising happened: A portion of his shell literally came off. You know how turtles grow new layers of shell every year? Well, let's just say that the lower half of Dexter's shell lost a few years. Needless to say, I freaked out, taking it as a sign that he was being neglected (which was true, because my family's description of turtle-care was only "Wash and feed").
After some research, I surmised that he was suffering from calcium deficiency (did you know that 95% of terrapins die within six months from this?), so I went to a pet store chain to purchase calcium supplements. There, I also spoke to a sales assistant who told me to let Dexter bask in sunlight at least an hour everyday to assist in calcium uptake (cue moans from Chemistry and Biology students).
Which was exactly what I did. Every day, I left him out in the shallow pail in which I kept him (it was determined that he could try climbing as much as he possible but will never be able to actually escape the pail) for several hours.
Then last Wednesday, while at work, my mom sent me an SMS informing me that he had gone missing after heavy rain.
Being the responsible (*cough*) owner that I am, once I arrived home, I whipped out a flashlight and scoured the local underground drainage system for signs of that calamitous chelonian. After 30 minutes of searching, I decided that, if the rain was indeed as heavy as my mother reported it to be, and if Dexter escaped into the drains outside my house, he would've been swept by strong currents into places unknown.
In reality, after so many years of domestication, most pets never do well in the wild. I gave him a week or two before he croaks. This is why exotic pet owners should never release their pets into the wild *. Instead of freeing them, you could have slit their necks silently while they were sleeping and achieved the same result in a shorter length of time. It also became a driving factor in my search for the lost turtle; I was spurred more by a warped sense of duty and responsibility than actual love for the pet.
I was never that emotionally attached to the turtle (thank goodness it wasn't a dog or a cat), but since he belonged to me, I am responsible for its livelihood. In that light, I partly blame my dear mother for this turn of events, too. At the same time I bought them calcium supplements, I proposed 'upgrading' Dexter's living space from the simple pail to a full-fledged terrarium complete with ultraviolet lighting and plastic greenery, but met opposition from aforementioned dear mother. She gave reasons such as "we have no space in the house", "how do you expect to clean it", "I don't like you kids who don't have responsibility to your pets", plus a myriad of other unreasonable excuses, which was funny because she's usually very sensible, an also because
I AM 19 YEARS OLD FOR CRYING OUT LOUD
I can't believe that I actually allowed my mother's disapproval stop me from building the terrarium. If it wasn't for the absurdity of the conflict, I wouldn't even be posting this on my blog. It would've cost less than RM 150, which is more than ten times smaller than my monthly salary at Synovate, there is space in the house, and voicing out my interest in getting a terrarium should've reinforced the fact that I'm actually particular about my pet's welfare, so why the hell did I not get one?
It's clear now that it's because I'm the proverbial "momma's boy". Goddamn.
In any case, the possibility of me getting more turtles in the future is highly likely, now that I've bitched, moaned and waxed poetic about this to my parents, the neighbours, aunts and uncles, and any soul that bothered or was unfortunate enough to listen to my stupid story.
* Don't ever do this if you're not sure if your pet is indigenous to your locale or not. In a worst case scenario, it may cause an ecological disaster, like rabbits in Australia.
