The Pets We Had

Being an MK to some exotic place means you get AWESOME pets from that exotic place!
First, we had normal pets. Dog and a cat. Slowly, I began to love animals. And thus, I begged for more.
So we got a chicken. Vampire bats got to the chickens, and I cried my eyes out...Poor Rosie, Pepper, Millie, Alice, Gaby, and Archibald...
Then, after that, we decided we would get two turtles: One for me and one for my sister.
They were snapping turtles. We put them in a cage held together with staples and tin.
Two weeks later, WOOSH. The turtles bit off the staples and knawed through the tin. We lost them.
Later, we were about to get an ocelot. Beautiful little kitties. Dad was all for it, but Mom...Not so much...
So that was past. We were almost going to get a horse. The problem? We didn't have any idea how to get the horse from the village it was in to our village. NO WAY would the horse ride in the canoe so far. And, we also didn't have a place to put him.
So, we couldn't have a horse either.
We had birds. Well, not really but we fed a Toucan popcorn every day. He would come by and sit on our doorstep ready for the treats. When we left, he left.
I often captured many little creatures in my Magnifying Carrier. This wonderful bug catcher was great for anything small enough to fit in it. It held tadpoles, whom, I'm sad to say, died about two days later, and butterflies and everything else! It broke when Dad tried to keep a scorpion inside it. Sad.
We even found a PURPLE ladybug. Violet purple. And we named it--my name!! I loved im'. We had found him on our walk down to the creek.
We also had Bubbles. A very cute little water turtle that I found on the path on his back. I saw him dying, and if you know me, you KNEW I would NOT leave the poor thing there!!
We had him for a few days. He lived in a tub in the shower. Mom did not like him one bit. He was a side-neck turtle, which meant that instead of pulling his head in, he rolled it underneath, sideways. He had a long neck. Which meant that, anyone who was using the pot had to be ready for a peep-show. Bubbles would watch everyone. We let him go in the creek, because we knew he ate fish and we couldn't give him fish. So, we took him and left him in the creek. He was much happier. And so was Mom.
Through the years we were offered many types of pets. Mom turned down anything that was either freaky, needed food that was difficult to find, too big, or we had no place for them or any of the above.
No birds was her rule. Mom has always been afraid of birds. I love them!
I had many turtles. One of them, the one with much character, died in the sun when we left for a week and we left him with our trusted friend. It was not their fault.
Frankie was his name. He had character!!
He had scared Mom more than once, and gave each of us a laugh. I'm crying now, as I write this.
Once, when Mom was in the school-room alone, swinging and reading in the hammock, she heard a noise in Dad's tool room.
"What are you doing??" Mom shouted.
Silence.
"Hellooo?!?"
Crash, bang, CLUNK, rustle.
Mom got up and investigated. Frankie had SOMEHOW managed to climb onto Dad's tool-shelf and was nestled among the pliers. He had made Mom think someone had been stealing tools.
Nope. Just Frankie, settling down for his afternoon nap.
Another time, Mom was swinging in the hammock again, and Frankie squeezed himself under the bottom shelf of Dad's enormous bookshelf. He had been taking a nap peacefully, when Mom laughed her head off and called us down there.
We laughed even harder. I tried to pull Frankie out from under the bookshelf. Dad had to pry him loose. Finally we got him out.
Seems Frankie liked variety, and changed is napping spot every time. We found him all sorts of places. In the shower, under the bed, in the closet. He was always hiding. I loved him. So I cried extremely deep when he had passed away.
So, those are our pets that we had. And there are MANY more. Like a humming-bird.

Shichas

Well, worms are something. Now on to shichas. They are horrible little creatures, and I haven't the faintest idea why God invented them but He definitely had a reason.
These little shichas were little tiny flea-like bugs that lived in dirt and would climb into your foot and make a nest of baby shichas IN YOUR FOOT. The only way to get rid of one, was to poke it out with a needle. This, as you can probably imagine, hurt. And the fact that I ran around bare-foot, made me come home with little nature presents in my feet nearly every day.
Mom was the shicha remover. She was the mom, thus, she had needles and therefore, was the one who dealt with the problem.
She would await us in the room, like she wasn't happy to have the privilege of holding our jungle feet and picking disgusting shichas out of our foot. What an honor! I can't imagine why she wouldn't be thrilled...
It would start with HER. Spotting us limping as casually as we could manage, (which wasn't very discreet.)
The shichas ITCHED LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE while they were in your foot. They squirmed around and built nests all inside your foot. So, trying to walk in a casual manner was NOT as easy as it may sound.
We weren't overjoyed to have someone pick at our feet. It hurt and tickled at the same time, if you can imagine that.
Dad was the funniest whenever he had a shicha in his foot. It was family-time. We'd all gather around as Mom prepared the foot. She would place it on her lap, needle in hand, and one of us kids holding the Somergan. Somergan would kill the little devil, hiding in our foot. Mostly what mom would do was poke a big hole and DOUSE the fellow with Somergan.
Dad would sit there. Holding on to something. Usually he clutched the chair so hard that we all feared it might fall apart.
"Ready?" Mom would ask.
"Uh-huh..."
"OOkaay.." And with that, she could pierce the needle into my Dad's foot and--
"YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! OUCH OUCH OUCH!" He would yelp, and he would move, and Mom had to point out that if he moved again, it would hurt him even more.
Dad sat still for maybe two more minutes as Mom poked and prodded around in his foot. If he had a nest in his foot this process could take hours.
We would beg Mom to leave it alive.
We kids were evil to them. Once we took them out, we'd steal Mom's needle, the Somergan, the matches and begin the torture. We hated shichas. They made us look like idiots for scratching our feet during Sunday service. It was FINE if the Indians did it, but if we did it, Mom would take us out of church and home and then pick it out and we'd go back to church feeling relieved.
One night, we had an experiment. We wanted to see just how tough Demon, (that's what we named it) was.
We filled a cup with water. He swam around. He was smaller than a flea. Then he JUMPED out of the cup and we dashed for him. We didn't want to kill it, because we weren't done playing with it yet. Josh finally caught him, digging into our cat's tail. The cat took care of it, and then my brother Josh pried it away from Maxine. He held it in a napkin.
Next we burned it. Over the electric stove, we speared it with the needle and roasted him like a marshmallow. Only...we didn't eat it.
We tried soaking it in a bowl of Somergan, and we tried to flush it down the toilet. The toilet worked, and we had to go to bed.
The next day, someone, I won't say who, used the restroom and ...well...we'll leave it at that.
We loved shichas. Part of life. And we dealt with them appropriately and enthusiastically!