Venus Flytraps are for Girls
About three months before my 8th birthday , shortly after my great fossil hunt, Dad came home in a great mood. He had transferred between exterminator companies , and as a result had gotten a small raise. Never being the type to save money for future emergencies Dad immediately went out and bought presents for Geno , John, Rose , and myself. Steve wasn't home as he spent most of his time with his girlfriend Kathy.
When Dad came in the door it was clear he was drunk. But for a nice change he seemed to be in a happy mood. Knowing he might regret buying us the presents when he sobered up we didn't waste anytime getting them away from Dad.
Dad told Geno and John to open their gifts first. They ripped the gift wrapping off ,and with smiles on both of their faces they saw Dad had given them each sling shots. I'm talking heavy duty monster sling shots here. In the bottom of each box came a tube of bb's. Mom looked very worried when she saw that. Looking towards me out of the corner of her eye she asked Dad, "Are you sure that's safe?"
Dad in his drunken exuberance mumbled, "What could go wrong?"
I felt vaguely nervous as John and Geno kept pretending to shoot me with their new gifts.
Rose's gift was next. Dad told her to be carefully opening her it. With great care Rose took the wrapping off the box. She opened the box to find a Venus Flytrap. Rose looked very puzzled.
"What the heck is this?" She looked like she was holding a soiled diaper instead of a plant.
Dad took the plant out of Rose's hands and put it gently on the coffee table. Smiling he leaned close to Rose."It eats bugs." Rose looked down at the plant with a greater appreciation.
" If you put a little raw hamburger in it's leafs it'll eat that too."
Rose was now smiling at the plant. Rose kept sticking her finger in the plant's leaves. It would snap on her fingers, and she'd make a ,"ouch" , noise. Then she'd do it again.
(The older I get the more appropriate it seems that Dad gave Rose that plant , instead of another Barbie doll.)
Dad told me to open my gift. With great eagerness I ripped the paper off. I looked my gift with great confusion.
"It's a dog food bowl."
Dad nodded at me smiling. He got up from the couch and staggered outside to his car. He came back holding a tiny little brown puppy. This thing was no bigger then one of his hands.
"I bought you a dog. It's a German Shepard." He handed me the little beast." You can name it anything you want ."
I looked at the drooling face in front of me. Vacant eyes looked my way , while it panted at me. Rose's plant was surely smarter then this thing. It started to lick it's private regions. Gross. I started to run a list of appropriate names in my head.
Vomit ? Nope. Slobber? Nope Pooper? Nope. Geno? Nope. Then it came to me. The perfect name.
Before I could say it ,Rose shouted out ,"Duke!"
Geno and John nodded. "Yeah Duke",Geno said.
Dad nodded and smiled. "Yeah Duke it is." He said, slurring each word.
"I thought I was naming the dog?"
"You waited to long. We don't have all day."
I looked at my "present". Duke? That was a royal name. A cool name. I liked Pig Face much better. Just then the little beast urinated on me. Everyone laughed. "You better clean that up", Dad said.
Laughing ,Geno and John ran outside to shoot things with their sling shots. Rose ran out to get some bugs to feed to her plant. Mom and Dad got up and headed for the kitchen. "Remember it's your dog. You have to take care of him."
That's what I was afraid of.
I knew what that meant. While Geno and John got to shoot every moving thing passing our back yard , and Rose had the coolest plant in the world , I was going to have to tend to this little brown turd named Duke. First I was going to have to house train him, then take him outside at 3 in morning when he was crying by the door. Then everytime he made a mess or chewed up Dad's shoes, I was going to get yelled at.
"Tom look what your dog did", was going to be something I would hear a lot of in the near future.
I know. Most young boys my age would be thrilled with getting a dog. But you must understand how my family worked. In giving the dog to me , Dad made sue that no one else would be helping to care for the little mutt. Anytime it needed anything my name would be called out. If it pooped in the house , my brothers and sister would hunt me down wherever I was, in order that I clean it up. They understood that if they helped even once , that Mom and Dad would say something like ,"That's nice you helped with Tom's dog." Then the next time I wasn't around , they might be called on to clean up the dog's mess. Hell I remember being dragged off the playground just of open up a can of Alpo dog food.
Did I mention that while running back and forth from the playground to the house I had to endure a hail of sling shot fire from my brothers. It got so bad they would take up ambush positions on my way home from school. With all the practice Geno and John had hitting a moving target , they became pretty good shots.
Then once in the house I had to listen to Rose and her gaggle of friends make a fuss over that plant. My sister never tired of putting small insects in the plant's claw like leaves. The flytrap was becoming engorged on all the food my sister was feeding it. I soon came to hate that plant as much as I did my little rodent masquerading as a dog. ( In all likely hood , I hated it because I was jealous it wasn't mine.) Meanwhile my "gift" would have taken a dump in Mom's shoe or something like that. One day the little animal even tore one of my Major Matt Mason space dolls to pieces
As a result of me tending to the creature's every need , and my sibling's ignoring it at all times, Duke bonded with me. It would follow me everywhere. When I sat on the couch to watch television it would curl up next to me. When I would sit in a chair reading a book , it would want to sit in my lap. At bed time it would lay on top of my blankets next to me. It got to the point when It would have to go out with me when I went to play. Going out with me made him so happy that I almost forgot the headache this little (but rapidly growing ) dog had caused me.
One day about 2 months after getting Duke , my family was sitting in the living room watching television after supper. I was laying on the floor with Duke, rolling a ball back and forth. The moment he saw my hand move he would pounce on the ball , his tail wagging. He would shake the ball a few times back and forth in his mouth, before dutifully coming back and dropping the ball in front of me. Then he would run a few feet in front of me waiting for my hand to move and the ball to head his way again. We did this all night.
It was at some point during all this that an actual fly landed on the Venus Flytrap. My Dad saw and silently motioned for everyone to watch. The fly moved closer and closer to the deadly trap. Rose smiled over the insects cruel fate. Then in a flash the clawlike leaves snapped over the helpless fly.
Rose's smile faded a brief second later when Duke leaped on top of the coffee table and pounced on the Flytrap. His jaws closed over the helpless plant and began to shake it back and forth. Dirt flew everywhere. Duke pulled it right out of it's pot. Rose screamed. Geno and John stared in stunned silence. Then Duke trotted over to where I was sitting and dropped the remains of the plant in front of me. He then ran a few feet in front of me waiting for either the ball or what was left of the flytrap to be rolled his way.
"He killed it",Geno muttered. Rose was now making little sobbing noises. Dad stood up wiping some dirt off himself.
"Bad dog", Mom said halfheartedly. She never did like that dreadful plant I would later learn.
Dad looked at me with a frown on his face."Look what your dog did. Clean this mess up."
That was one mess I was more then happy to tend to. I began to think maybe I was wrong about my dog after all. Maybe he was kinda cool all along?
The idea that Duke was an awesome dog was cemented in my head a little over a week later. On that cool fall day, I was outside playing with Duke when Geno and John decided to use me for target practice again. The first little projectile hit me in the butt. Before I could make a mad dash for the house , Duke took off after my two brothers. One second he was happily retrieving sticks I was throwing ,the next he was snarling and chomping after my brothers. For once they were making a mad dash to the back door, screaming in terror the whole way. John even dropped his sling shot. Sadly it was far more durable then Rose's Venus Flytrap. It would live to vex me again.
But from that moment I felt Duke was the most incredible coolest dog in all creation. I almost never left the house without my loyal dog next to me. Even when I rode my bike Duke would run along side of me. John and Geno no longer considered it open season on me. They were careful about even raising their voices around me.
For over the next year everytime Rose saw Duke she would give him a hateful glare.
And that just made me love my dog even more then I already did.