Monday, March 24, 2008 My Pretty Pet Chick By Dyan Cuevas
OKAY, so my animal-lovin’, pet-obsessed, money-throwing tendency has gotten the best of me.
I bought a pet chick.
A chick?! Yes. Well, it’s because according to the Family Animal Control Center (FACC), I can’t get another dog. I can’t get a cat. I can’t even get myself a drum set. So the next best thing to owning something worth cherishing and loving is... a chick. Besides, once I get one, people will think it’s just going to die anyway. Unlike the time I brought home two cats without letting my mom know, and she immediately had me give them back. But that’s another story...
Anyway, I bought a pet chick. Not just any kind of chick, though. Not those ordinary P5 hatchlings that you used to save up on when you were in grade school. It’s a P50 Chinese Silkie chick, the kind that grows up into a big, white furball of a chicken. I was actually set on “investing” on an adult Silkie, but common sense got to me. And common sense is dependent on parental control. And parental control can get me killed if I brought home an adult chicken without consulting common sense. So I bought a chick instead. And I bought some special booster feed for it and one of those cool plastic contraptions called a waterer. I wanted to get another one to keep it company, but he was the last one left. I’ll probably be coming back to the store somewhere in Labangon (in the opposite direction from where I live) just to get a couple more of these adorable creatures.
So I bought a pet chick. And I named him Chucky. And now he resides in a 12”x12” cardboard box with two hot water bottles, a feeding cup, and the waterer. I didn’t have a lamp for him so I got the closest thing to yellow light: an “APPLAUSE” lamp, the kind used for TV shows. It gives him light, warmth and lots of audience impact.
And because everybody could tell how much I love my new pet, I was granted special permission to keep him in the second-floor library. Putting him in the bedroom is a bad idea because we usually turn on the air conditioner at night. I didn’t want to wake up to find my beloved Chucky all frozen up ready to be shipped to Magnolia.
Just this morning, my mom called up a good friend of hers who owns several Chinese Silkies and asked her if she still had a few chicks to give away. Unfortunately, there’s none left. But even if I wasn’t able to get a new chick, I was given a course on Chicken Care 101, and now I feel like taking on the world with Chucky by my side!
So I bought a pet chick. And my maternal instincts are kicking up. Since Chucky is so small and fragile, all I want to do is hold him and keep him warm and protect him from the cold, from cousins who want to manhandle him and from his own poop. I watch him as he sleeps and I feel a surge of love and delight in me. I constantly think about him throughout the day: Are his water bottles still warm? Has the Applause lamp exploded due to overheating? Will he get by without me? I feel like a mother, you know?
Now I know how my mom feels. I know why she’s so overprotective of me. I know why I have to keep letting her know that I’m doing alright when I’m away. I know why she always braces herself for the worst whenever I’m out. Because I guess you could say I’m my mom’s pet chick. And I’m pretty sure that she loves me waaay more than I love Chucky. Now I understand… ever since I bought a pet chick.
