The loss of a pet can be arguably worse than the loss of a human, depending on the human, you know. The loss of a constant friend, that pure-energy ball you came home to every day, it’s a total shock to the system. It can bring you to tears, and throw you into the depths of grief…

I’ve never had relationship like that to a pet. When I was in second grade, my mom promised we could get a dog when we moved. That Christmas after we moved, I received a dog bookmark from Santa. That was the same year I stopped believing in Santa. I know, what a guy:)

The closest I came was my pet tree named Shelter, a bunny-rabbit named Sniffles, and a Pandemic *trial adoption of a cat I named Panqueques McBeitlerWitz.

Back in grade school, my friends and I used to go to Homer’s Ice Cream, and at the checkout counter they had two jars, one for the people with cancer, and the other for ASPCA (the pets that were getting abused). My friend Otis would always choose the pets, and I used to wonder about that — I don’t anymore. You know, some people have souls, and some people have smaller souls. It just took me a while to realize that not everyone is a 5-star person, but dogs? Pretty consistently awesome. Otis asked me to change her name because she was embarrassed, but I don’t think she has anything to be embarrassed about. She also said I could change her name to anything, so I chose Otis.

I was sitting here last week, and Julie (one of the bartenders here at Kibbitznest) was hanging out, and I was like, do you have any stories about pets? She’s like, “yeah! My dog was once baby Jesus …” And I don’t remember if she said it in those words, but that’s how I heard it. Julie’s ex-husband was a pastor, and so were his mom and dad — AND they were part of a religious cult. A family of pastors in a religious cult. A lot to unpack there.

Julie was meeting his parents for the first time over Christmas, and before they hit the road she packed a couple bottles of wine. I’m not sure how soon after, but his parents asked Julie if she and her dog would like to be in their Nativity scene. The parents were playing Mary & Joseph, and they need Julie’s dog for baby Jesus, and Julie to play one of the three kings. At this point I’m like, screw whatever my pet story is… this is way better. Apparently they do this every year, every year they reenact the Nativity scene, and Julie’s ex gave her no warning, she had no idea this was coming. AND, AND it was a dry Christmas! So she has to do it sober, the guy just watches her pack 2 bottles of wine and doesn’t say a peep. I wonder what Jesus would have to say, about this?

They bundled Julie’s dog up, the Messish, the Savior, the son of God, born in humble surroundings, he triumphed over evil with the force of goodness! What a dog, apparently he was an excellent baby Jesus, I believe it, and I’d like to thank Julie for giving me permission to re-tell this story….

I moved to Chicago right before the pandemic. I’d like to blame covid for my loneliness, but when I think about it, I’ve always kinda been a loney MF. I thought a cat would make a nice companion, without the maintenance or time commitment of a dog. So I joined the felines of Chicago facebook group — where I found BINX. And this was the message I received about Binx from his owner, “We are so upset about having to re-home him, because he is stressed out. We are just trying to do what’s best for him, but please if there are ANY issues whatsoever we will take him back in a heartbeat.”

Ok great, this cat will love my place, it’s just me, pretty calm, and I’m a therapist, so I can help him with all that stress. They actually had him on cat Xanax. That’s what its come to these days. Is it Binx’s fault we live in an Anti-life culture? Of course not, not surprising, but, sometimes I look around, and think, “where are the adults?!” It doesn’t have to be this way.

I bought a crate, and all the cat things, and drove about an hour to get him. Once I had him in the car. He was crying A LOT, he wouldn’t stop, so I started singing, that didn’t work, so I started playing some classical music, and that wasn’t working either, so I thought I’d let him out of the crate in the car, so he was crawling all over the dashboard, and peeing himself. I really can’t tell if this is interesting or not…

I renamed (Binx) Panqueques McBeitlerWitz — Panqueques is spanish for pancakes, and McBeitlerwitz because now he’s now an Irish-Jew like me. As if his life wasn’t bad enough, now he’s a neurotic-alcoholic, on top of the anxiety disorder he already has and being in the foster system.

I think people give cats a hard time, especially in comparison to dogs, my theory is, because you have to earn a cat’s love, it’s not just going to TRUST YOU. Dogs will love everyone, cats, not so much.

Panqueques and I built a relationship, but the problem was, he needed way too much from me. I thought I could just be gone all day, and come home and chill. Not the case. Every day he’s meowing, mad at me for not being home, I’m vacuuming up litter twice a day. One night, I was just sitting on the couch, feeling particularly lonely, and Panqueques bit me, then I started crying…

Panqueques, I’M SO SORRY, BUT I HAD TO RETURN YOU, you gave me anxiety, JESUS, SON OF GOD PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I MADE A MISTAKE, I HOPE YOU CAN HEAR THIS PANQUEQUES….