Animal House.

Slowly but surely…here’s another trivia question.

6. Which of the following is not a pet that Melissa has owned?

a)     monkey

b)     parrot

c)     turtle

d)     frog

This was one that my family would have been able to get pretty easily.  I have never owned a turtle.  In writing this post, I began to list all of the pets that I have owned in my lifetime and realized a couple things:

·      I have had a surprising variety of pets in my lifetime

·      I have had many pets in my lifetime – so many that it would be boring and sad to list them all

·      I am not very creative when it comes to naming pets.  Especially when I was really young.  To give you an idea, my first pets were a parakeet named Pinky, a rabbit named Brownie, and a parrot named Feathers.

When I was in 2^nd or 3^rd grade (I don’t actually know because my elementary school did not have “grades”), Los Angeles was hit by some incredible storms.  Schools were shut down for days because massive rivers of water were running down streets and mudslides were burying roads.  My house had this giant backyard, and during the floods a big stream came running through our yard and I would spend hours sending twigs down the flow to watch it go through the different channels.

Anyway, our “river” started by a lagoon of sorts, which became the breeding ground for hundreds of frogs.  Since our 2^nd/3^rd class was studying the life cycle, I brought in some tadpoles so we could watch them turn into frogs.  I was the coolest kid that year, because everyone wanted me to bring them frogs. 

The monkey came years later during a trip to the Amazon.  No.  I did not try to sneak the monkey into the U.S.  It lived in Peru and I would play with it on my visits.  And no.  I hadn’t seen Outbreak yet -- such a great movie, with such a horrible last line.  Don't remember?  Skip to 7:40. (I should also warn you that this clip picks up at a pretty climactic part of the movie, so don't watch it if you have never seen the movie and intend to...)

I should mention that this movie is great. I love this movie (it has MORGAN FREEMAN in it!) The fact that it is so great, is what makes that last line so horrible.