Sometimes hobbies shouldn't breathe
The first Thanksgiving that my husband, John, and I spent together as a dating couple was very cold for November in Alabama.
We were bundled up in sweaters, coats and scarves as we made our way from one family Thanksgiving feast to the next.
I pointed out our scaly, half-dead friend to John and begged him to rescue the poor creature from the cold. I knew the skink lived off the warmth of the summer sun, not the cold of the concrete.
"You don't want me to do that," John warned. "I used to raise reptiles when I was a kid and I know from experience that it's an expensive, time-consuming hobby."
"But he'll die out here," I begged. "We just can't go in and eat Thanksgiving dinner while he's out here dying!"
"You really don't want me to do that," John warned again.
"P-L-E-A-S-E?" I begged again, this time with tears welling up in my eyes.
And so John and I began taking care of our first joint pet--an ugly, half-dead yard skink we named Lucky.
John gave Lucky a proper aquarium home, complete with hiding spots, a heat rock, and plenty of food and water, but Lucky never seemed to recover from his adventure into the cold.
Lucky died shortly after Christmas, but John's need to care for ugly little reptiles did not.
Before long, John's one bedroom, guesthouse apartment had turned into a full-blown reptile exhibit.
He had aquarium tanks on top of the entertainment center, double-stacked on tank stands along every free inch of the walls, on the kitchen countertop, at the foot of the bed, on his chest of drawers, beside the bathroom shower, and even in his closet.
The tanks held captive a variety of creatures over the years--corn snakes, leopard geckos, bearded dragons, a scorpion, and even a very temperamental tarantula.
Needless to say, I had a lot of roommates when I moved in.
"I tried to warn you this would happen," John reminded me.
A bull-nosed-something-or-other-snake had escaped from its tank and I was standing in the middle of the couch.
"You said this hobby was expensive and time consuming, not dangerous," I rebutted.
"The snake won't hurt you. He's non-venomous," John said.
"It's not me who's in danger," I replied.
One year later, John and I were married and had moved into our very first home. We made a deal that his reptiles would only be housed in one spare bedroom, not all over the house, and that the door would remain shut at all times to keep our two cats, Tybalt and Charles, and small two-legged visitors away from temptation.
The reptiles were out of sight and soon out of John's mind. He dispersed his collection to friends and fellow reptile hobbyists.
"I think I'm getting a couple of saltwater fish tanks," John informed me when the reptiles were gone. "One for the living room and one for the kitchen."
I was so overjoyed to have a reptile-free home that I agreed instantly with his new hobby. Besides, there's no way a few pretty little fish could take over the entire house.
Or so I thought.
"I promise they'll be gone by Thanksgiving," John recently said of the two huge, water-filled plastic containers that have been sitting on either side of the fish tank in my kitchen for the last six months.
"I just have one more batch of live rock to clean. I'll wait until after the holidays to put together my new, bigger fish tank in the living room."
And this was supposed to be less expensive and time-consuming than his reptile collection?
If there's a place in Heaven for ugly little lizards, I bet Lucky is looking down at me and saying, "He told her so."
