My Life with Pets

Hey guys! I guess an introduction is in order. My name is Kelsie, and what you guys should know about me is that I live at home with my parents and sister, and we've got two dogs and four cats, yes I said four cats, three of which are allowed to be around each other. Ok now that I've got that out of the way, on to what you all are hear to read about.

Yesterday my sister got in a car accident, while she was out with my mother, and she got transported to the hospital in an ambulance. They were out for hours, leaving me to run the zoo that is our house while they were gone. My dad is away on business, and everyone else is gone, so I'm solely in charge. Normally I would have been excited and ready to blast my music while I got stuff done, but I felt eyes on me the minute I walked downstairs to get some cleaning done. Both dogs, and three out of the four cats were staring at me.

Now I don't know what it is about me being alone with them, but fifty percent of the time they act crazy. They don't sit still and they don't act like the well behaved animals that they really are. Seriously, they are usually good animals you guys.

Yesterday was one of the bad days. One minute the dogs are both barking, asking to go out and begging for food. Then next minute the cats are knocking things off of counters, zooming around the house and wrestling, and finally almost killing me when I'm going up the stairs. All the while the fourth cat is meowing in the room that she's locked away in, begging to come out and join the party.

Needless to say, it was a loud chaotic mess.

I was at the end of my rope. It's been a rough year, and something about yesterday just broke me. It was ten p.m. and I was sitting on the floor losing every bit of control I had left, threatening to turn the dogs into throw rugs and the cats into pillows, and when I was done I realized that everything had gone quiet. They had all settled down for a minute so I could get my act together, or at least that's what I chose to tell myself. In reality they were all staring at me as if I had lost my mind.

Of course after that minute was up, they got loud and rambunctious again. They became just as bad as before, but then the best thing happened. My mom and sister walked in the door, and they all decided that they were going to behave like upstanding citizens. I laid out on the floor and just about started crying again.

My favorite dog came up and licked me right on the face, and all I could do was laugh. After everything we had just gone through together, all I wanted was to lay down and go to sleep. I trudged upstairs, glaring at the animals. The glare held no weight, and my favorite dog looked at me in a way that said she knew it.

As bad as it was in the moment, and as tired as I was after all those hours of having to be in charge and attentive, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I will gladly take all the bad days, because I love our zoo full of animals.

Anyway, that's my story! I guess that's just a day in the life of this domestic zookeeper.