New Pet

The other day I overheard my kids talking in the playroom:

“Oh!  He’s so cute! Let’s keep him as a pet.”

“Where should we put him?”

“How bout in the microwave.”

Woah!

“What the heck are you guys doing?”

“We found an ant…we’re gonna keep him as a pet.  The toy microwave is gonna be his house.”

Ok well I at least feel a little better that they weren’t planning on putting him in the actual microwave because the last time they found an ant in the playroom they killed it and then had this conversation:

Grant: “The ant is dead.”

Carter: “Ok, go get the mustang and we’ll put him in the trunk.”

And then I had to ask myself…on a scale of one to Goodfellas where should my level of concern be?

So, I mean, wanting to keep it as a pet is better than wanting to give it a pair of cement shoes, right?

Ok, back to the problem at hand…

“You can’t keep an ant as a pet.”

“Why not?”

“Well they’re bugs and bugs live outside.  And they don’t live in microwaves.”

“Why not?”

“Cause what if you want to heat something up?  Then you’ll cook the ant.”

“Mom, it’s just a TOY microwave.”

Sometimes I really hate having smart, wise-ass little kids.  Oh no wait…that’s all the time…I all the time hate having smart, wise-ass little kids.

“Whatever, you’re not keeping it.  Where’s it gonna sleep?”

“I already thought about that…”

He already thought about that.  Naturally he did.

“I put a nice comfy block in there for him.”

Raise your hand if the last time you looked a block the word “comfy” came to mind.

“Well, anyway, no. You don’t know what they eat, it probably can’t breathe, it belongs outside and also like one million other reasons why keeping an ant in a microwave on a comfy block is a bad idea.”

“But we want a pet!”

“We have two dogs!”

“But I want a pet that I can pat and snuggle with!”

Am I on hidden camera?  Or do my kids really just want a nice snuggly ant?

We had to go do something at that point so I had to let them leave the ant in the microwave for at least a little bit longer.  Carter put it on his dresser in his room.  Which, I have to say, was a step up from his first suggestion of letting it sleep in his bed. 

We came home later that night and I had forgotten all about Anty (which is what they named it by the way, because they’re super creative like that).  But unfortunately the kids hadn’t forgotten about Anty at all.

“Can he sleep in my bed?”

Is “FUCK NO!” an acceptable answer to give your 5 year old when he’s asking for a bug to have a sleepover?  Instead I just firmly vetoed that plan.  At this point checked in with our little miro-block-ant and found him just walking around and around in a little circle.  Now, either he was doing some laps trying to stay fit or he was going brain dead from lack of oxygen.  Since the latter was more probable I suggested maybe it was time to let Anty get back outside and join the rest of his ant family under the god damned ground where they belong!

There was a lot of fighting and some tears but I finally convinced Carter to release the prisoner…um…I mean, pet.  I told him I would put him out but he insisted on doing it himself.  It was like that scene from Old Yeller: “It’s my ant mom, I’ll do it.”

Now, did I forget to mention that my husband was out of town during this whole ant-scapade? Cause he was. Jerk. So I was flying solo on the dream-crushing ant-denying front.

I finally get the ant outside, the boys in bed, the wine poured and the TV on when suddenly…

“Waaaaaahhh!!!  We miss Anty!”

Both kids; hysterical over the loss of their bug.  As I sat there listening to my babies all upset and sad I decided to do what any good mother would have done in exactly this situation….turn up the volume and pour another glass.  Ah! Now that’s better!

RIP Anty.