Missy Mona (Princess Pokeypants) and Christmas prickly pears.
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My great uncle had a desert tortoise named pokey. My dad remembers hanging out with pokey as a child. Pokey’s still around. Nobody inherited him after my great uncle died, but he still comes back to the old house every winter and bangs on the back door until they let him into the garage so he can hibernate.
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Lots of people have desert tortoises here, but Mona’s actually a Sulcata. Unfortunately, she doesn’t hibernate, so we’ve had to build her a heated, insulated shed to sleep in. Also she’ll grow to be over 100lbs. Also, my newborn son will probably have to put her in his will…
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That’s the nice thing about turtles and tortoises. They’re one of those rare pets that you won’t have to bury.
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I had friends who married at 21 and got a macaw as their first pet together: they had to put the bird in their wills because the life expectancy in captivity can be 90+ years!
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Our kitties were so excited when we set one of those up and then got all sulky when they realized it was for the baby.
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A slightly uncomfortable chat we had 2 years ago with the lovely septuagenarian couple down the street, when they proudly showed us their Siamese kitten: “You know they commonly live into their 20s, right?”
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They are gorgeous. The one with darker markings looks especially sassy.
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Funny, when we explained that to the kittens they laughed at us.
Actually, weirdly, they’ve mostly left his toys alone. I guess most of them are too big. Or maybe it’s the thick coating of slobber.
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To be fair, it takes a whole lot more effort for him to do anything in a straight line than it does other cats. His motor skills are…deficient.
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Beware - Nerf darts are very popular with 75% of our cats. Also, smaller odd-shaped Legos get skittered around the whole damned house.
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My great uncle knew that pokey could live to 80 or more years. Possibly to 120. Maybe even older. How old do desert tortoises live when they’re protected from disease and predation? Pretty damn long.
Anyway, tortoises aren’t doggy. They’re catty. You befriend one as a hatchling, and it’ll go out into the desert and live its life, coming back to hibernate over the winter. It often looks like they’re completely dead at the end of hibernation, but they wake up and keep chugging along as you fade into the ages.
Tortoises and Turtles are an F’ing force of nature. Like rocks and shit. They don’t care what bullshit people are getting up to. They exist and will continue existing long after we’re gone as individuals.
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But seriously, for the last 20 years, pokey’s caretakers have thought he was dead at the end of hibernation. Ready to send out cards to the extended family every single time, because he’s such a fixture to us. And every time, he wakes up and ambles to the back door and bangs on it until he’s let out. Then he creeps into the San Diego desert and does his thing.
For 20 years the new people living in the old house have sent out postcards saying pokey is dead. And for 20 years they send out a second postcard saying that it’s a false alarm and that he’s as alive as ever. Maybe the humans living in pokey’s house are the ones who don’t know how to adapt.
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