the invented demise of Zachary

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the death of my cat. Which is pretty pathetic, because he hasn't died yet, nor does he show signs of doing so anytime soon. For some reason I just wander to an ugly place in my mind about 4 to 5 times a day and think about how sad it will be when my cat does actually die. I know that he can't live forever, and he's getting kind of old, so I'm just trying to be realistic about it, because it will happen...someday. Sure he's healthy and acting normal, but I have to pick something to worry about on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and this is my new senseless anxiety for the month. I think the main reason I needlessly obsess about this future event is because I never had a pet as a child and I am somehow trying to prepare myself for the mental blow of losing a cat that I've grown so fond of. Somehow I feel that if I picture in my mind's eye what it's like to come home and find an ailing or dead cat I'll be able to deal with it better. When deep down inside I know that there is no preparation for dealing with death; it's just one of those things you can't practice for, but that hasn't changed my behavior.

Rational me, I'd like you to meet crazy me, hope you two can live together.

I give it another week and then I'll find something as equally as unintelligent to worry about.

And for the record, I don't want to be a liar. Technically, I did have pets as a kid... My sister and I had two goldfish that we kept in a giant brandy snifter. Their names were Tom and Miles (named after friends of our mother, one was heavy and the other thin, just like the real Tom and Miles) and they lived a long, and perhaps meaningful, life on the dining room table. I don't remember exactly how long we had them, but I do remember that we came home from school one day and there was the snifter, still in the middle of the dining room table, but empty. No water. Not even a note. I know that my sister and I each owned one of the fish, and to this day I wonder if only one of them died, but not wanting anyone to feel slighted, my mom flushed both. I also remember being a complete drama queen about not having the chance to say goodbye and give my fine finned friends a proper burial, even though we lived in an apartment and had no yard.
We also had gerbils. I don't remember too much about them, I don't even remember their names. I do however recall that they had a pretty kick ass habitral (though nothing compared to these)and that they ate their babies, or maybe they ate each other, it's a little blurry when it comes to who was eating who. And they escaped right before we left for Disneyland, raising some questions of if we would find them before we had to be at the airport. We sometimes would let them run around in the bathtub... lots of fun to watch them try to escape to freedom by attempting to scale the tub walls with those scratchy little claws. I don't even remember how or when we got rid of them. Maybe they just fought each other to the death.
During undergrad I went into my "I'm cool and alternative" phase which led to ownership of a pet snake, who I promptly gave away to a grade school when she got big enough to eat rats. And lets not forget the impulse purchase of fish and a 12 gallon tank. I moved 3 times with that damn tank, those fish just wouldn't give up. Eventually they all died within 3 days when two new diseased fish were introduced to the pristine tank.

I don't remember being too devastated while saying goodbye to any of the pets listed above. Except maybe No-Legs-McGraw, who was a cutie little orange fish who I had for about 5 years. I liked him a lot, but he was hard to hug or cuddle with on the couch, I can't say we ever bonded. When I think of how downhearted I got while flushing my old friend No-Legs I can't help but think how devistating this whole cat death thing is going to be.

So I suppose instead of wasting more of my time writing about how much I'll miss him one day I'll go squish that big-eyed cat and enjoy him while he's around. if only he would come out from underneath the bed.