Furbabies

I like animals as much as the next person, but let me stress that I don't for a minute think they are people.

Once upon a time I had a pet cat. His name was Ralph and he was a trip, but that's a story for another time. Currently I don't have any kind of pet, although last week a fly got in the house and took to following me around. We started calling it "Jeff Goldblum."

It seems that owning a pet can involve spending huge amounts of time and money on their care. At this point in my life I would just rather not.

I have recently been on line at a website where there are a lot of pet owners. They call their pets their "furbabies."

Now it would never occur to me to call my pet my "furbaby." And of course for a fly, that would be completely inappropriate.

The other night I saw a spider that disappeared under my bed. With scarcely a thought I started thinking of it as "Charlotte."