5 Disturbingly Common Pets

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Yeah, when we said anything with fur and big eyes, we meant it. Yes, there are people who have pet skunks. Although to be fair, the problem isn’t what you’re probably thinking.

Removing the stink glands from a skunk is pretty easy, you just take it to the vet and the vet takes them out. No, it’s everything else about the skunk that makes it a terrible pet.

First, you have to keep them close to you when young at all times, because you need to develop a close bond or, well, it’ll take a chunk out of you when it gets bigger. Oh, and don’t forget, even while being playful, that it’s still got enormous freaking fangs.

Then there’s the housebreaking. Basically, you don’t pick a corner and put a litter box there; the skunk chooses a corner and then you put the litter box there. Hope he doesn’t choose, say, a corner of your bedroom, especially if he drops a load somewhere else. Then you have to soak it in vinegar.

Did we mention they’re walking trash disposals and you have to give them a huge variety of food, including 50 percent veggies? Oh, and that vets who know how to handle skunks are rare?

Yeah, have fun with that.

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Fish in general are lame as pets. They’re really more wallpaper you have to feed and clean than something you can take out and play with. Of course, this problem can be solved by picking an exciting fish. Like, say, the piranha, the perfect fish for aquarists of all types, if they happen to be Bond villains.

There are actually guides on how to choose a piranha, none of which open with “What in the name of the deity of your choice is wrong with you, or do you just have some corpse to dispose of?” While the ability of a school of piranha to skeletonize a cow is greatly exaggerated, they’ve still got the tools to ruin your day. These are not fish you can hand-feed, and they’re not going to go for those little flakes. No, they want meat, the fresher the better, and you’ll do if nothing else is available.

Believe it or not, they can at least be kept with other fish, but you have to feed them frequently, or guess what happens to the other fish. Also, their high protein diet means they drop a lot of fishy little loads, so be prepared to heavily filter the tank and get the ammonia out.

Here’s the really scary part: every guide we read also points out that if the piranha isn’t working out, you shouldn’t release it into the wild, because it’ll breed and become a problem. To which we have two questions:

1) What?

2) Wait, WHAT?!

Is there something about aquarists that, when thinking of releasing a fish that rips and tears into some random stream, there’s no little man screaming “THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA!” at the top of his lungs inside their brains? And breed? Wait, are people releasing piranha so often that the little buggers can actually start reproducing? What? That’s it, we’re never going swimming again.

Author: Dan Seitz — Copyrighted © roadtickle.com