Now, now...I know you are saying to yourself this very instant, "Oh, another cute animal story, another cuddly snuggly tale of a man and his best friend." No sir, that is not what you will find here - you won’t find, "Don't you just love the way a puppy smells?", "That cat just looks through you." I have no bumper stickers that say, "LOVE ME - LOVE MY (FILL IN THE BLANK)" nor do I own a single Garfield collectible. I am here to tell you the real story of a house filled with beasts of the two-legged, the four-legged and the no-legged-at-all variety.

Beginning at the crack of dawn there is a leaping about in my household, a ballet before breakfast shall we say. A great moaning and gnashing of teeth. Neighbors begin banging the walls because the day begins early around this zany little zoo. The moaning comes from my teenaged daughter who must fight her way to the vanity to make herself presentable to no one short of the Queen Mother. An adorable child she is; one second she will say to me, "I love you, Daddy" (add impish grin here) and the next, "GAWD! You don’t understand ANYTHING about love!" I assure her that indeed I know nothing about anything. I turn tail at this point, exiting quickly so that I may not offend her sensibilities with the sight of me any longer.

So it’s on to the lesser of the royalty in my home. Among this motley crew is a Dog...well, its supposed to be a dog. It’s more like a rat on steroids really. 5.2 pounds after a meal, with the personality of Attila the Hun and Heidi all rolled into a ball of ballistic bombast. No one seems to like the name I selected for her - Tweezer. I think it fits just perfectly. The other choices were comeheredamnitdog and dimpsydumpster - the latter because I no longer have to vacuum my home. She eats anything, everything, and brings me tree limbs to help decorate the living room. What a joy she is...no more being troubled with cleaning up a spill of any kind. She is a Black and Decker Dustbuster that never needs recharging.

Nestled peacefully in all this is the Cat - one Brinkley by name. A perfect Persian with those Barbra Streisand eyes to die for. Okay, he has been shaved due to a skin condition with only the fur on his tail and head left intact. A more pitiful creature you have never seen. In fact I recently had the occasion for an outside contractor to visit my house and when Brinkley made his entrance, the contractor leaned over to me and whispered, "What the hell is that?" I was not amused; and Brinkley spurned him most grievously from that moment on. Brinks just presents himself about twice a day so that he may be smothered in adoration for a few seconds and then it’s on to another world. I think that he must be having a Kitty Koffee Klatch with the neighborhood felines when I am not here. It’s the only explanation for his refusal to speak with me.

Enter stage LOUD, an African Gray parrot with a deformed leg whose vocabulary is not of my doing. It was rather cute the first 3,976 times he said "come here you $#^$head" Now he just gets a glare from me, which prompts him to throw his head back and laugh hysterically. This also does not amuse me. Willy by name, song and dance by trade. For some unknown reason he has a fondness for endlessly repeating answering machine beeps, microwave blares and the complete unedited version of the Anvil Chorus. Dog, beware tidbits dropped by Willy - not all are meant to be eaten...or at least NOT swallowed. Some things that you have eaten out of sheer gluttony are just sooo tedious coming out the other end.

One might think that just these three alone would be an interesting and adversarial combination...enemies by nature. Oh, no. In fact just the opposite, I have found. One morning recently, when I had failed to raise my wretched body at the usual 4:30 a.m., I felt an odd sensation in the toes of my right foot. (That's the foot that has night time readiness duty...you know how you cover up from head to toe except for those few toes that might have to bound from the bed at a moment’s notice lest you be murdered in your sleep?) I opened one eye and looked down to see what was disturbing my rest. Lined up beside the bed were the dog, the cat and the bird...all looking at me as if to say, "Well! you getting up?" "What does a dude have to do to get some breakfast around this lousy joint?"

Quincy...did I mention Quincy, the yellow monitor lizard who resides among us in sleepy-lidded bliss, awaiting his next “fuzzy”? (Not for the squeamish among you is the explanation that a “fuzzy” is mouse meat with the equivalent of a lamb's coat rather than a full length mink...shipped frozen from CA, that Mecca of the sometimes eccentric and often weirdly exotic.) Quincy lazily surveys the “well meaning yet sadly lacking of the warm bloodeds ” among him, now and then stretching a one-inch claw toward the glass-walled enclosure that houses him, no doubt to draw attention to the fact that he can inflict an adjustment to your thinking with one quick swipe. These beasts, which grow to 6 feet in length, can also be carriers of...exotic little parasites that could make your teeth appear on your forehead and web your toes. A pearl of wisdom for you: handle with care - or carry a scar! He is serene as monitors go and we have a healthy respect for one another. I worship him, whereas he can't wait until he is large enough to have me for an appetizer.

The calmest, sweetest and most maligned in our home is a dear Madagascar Tree Boa called Sophie. She enjoys the company of humans, has infinite patience and just loves to exchange some of her beauty for a little of your body warmth. Not to say that she cannot be a handful. Once I was displaying her for a few non-terrorized children in a classroom. It was a very hot day and I was decked out in my shorts and safari-looking outfit to impress my young audience. As I was explaining how important snakes were to our ecology, Sophie became bored and went on a little excursion around my back. Much to the surprise of the classroom and especially to the teacher, she emerged from the leg of my shorts, raising up quite high to survey all that was around her. For some reason I have not been invited back...hmmmm.

Last but not least and by far the most threatening - if you took her hisses to heart - is Hadass the Tortoise. No bigger than a china saucer, she is little but mighty fierce - can demolish a scant squash in about a day and a half! Her favorite pastime is to soak away the hours in a warm bath - which of course just mystifies Dog and Cat. They just cannot get over the fact that she wallows in her water dish...and likes it. By the time I am 164 years old, she will be the size of a wok and have run of the house.

Somehow this group manages to survive quite nicely, coexisting in a condo world. We amuse one another...we worry when one is ill or out of sorts. We all understand that on Sunday mornings we get a special brunch. We find peace and delight in sharing our different takes on life...and the world outside goes on. We all rather like it here... Now where is that worrisome wombat?

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