I'm not very good with animals. Except maybe cows, pigs, chickens and lambs. I know exactly what to do with them cause I am very fond of eating animals. A trip to Underwater World quickly gets my mouth watering as I envisage what I could do with all those thick fillets and start to wonder how long it's been since I had a nice chilli crab.
When I happen across a fishing program on telly I really can't understand why they release the fish back into the water after they've gone to all the trouble of catching it. I yell at the screen, "Are you mad! Why the hell are you even out there?" It could take me days to catch a decent sized fish when I was a kid. No way was I tossing it back. I'm guessing it's all show for the camera. Plus they're probably so sick of fish they only eat steak back at the motel.
Eating animals I excel at. Maybe it's truer to say I'm not very good with pets. We have a dog - a beautiful Samoyed named Jazz- but I can't stand when she licks me or, worse, presses her bum up against me, as she is prone to do. I try to give her attention and pat her and all that, but my hearts really not in it. It's not her fault - she's a smart dog. It's all me.
My family has a history of being bad with pets - my sister had her class guinea pig for one night and managed to drown it in a bucket of water while giving it a bath. I don't care much for guinea pigs either, come to think of it. We bought some for the kids one Christmas, and near as I can tell they're just poo machines.
The critters I really can't stand, though, are mice. Unless it's a computer mouse - I'm a dream with them.
For the last fifteen years it's been Tracey's job to empty traps and deal with any little critters who happen to wander into our home.
Only now it seems, much like the fishing programs on television, we've instigated a new 'catch & release' program for rodents here in the Devereaux household. I'm assuming it's got something to do with her pregnancy hormones because this is a woman who in the past, if she saw a mouse, wasn't prone to going into a tizzy and joining me up on a chair, she would toss shoes at the rodent with all the deadly speed and accuracy of a pitcher's arm.
Which is why it was such a shock to hear her chatting to the mouse whose leg was caught in a trap on Sunday night.
"Are you alright, sweetie? Look at you, you're so small," she cooed. I'm surprised she didn't set down a plate with some cookies.
And so, while I watched standing comfortably on a chair, Tracey set the little mouse free into our garden, where no doubt it will round up all its mousey friends and tell them about the mouse friendly house owned by the nice lady with the big stomach.
Seriously though, heaven help them once that baby pops out.
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