Why do parents keep getting pets?

[00:00:00]

Colleen Brennan: So I think the moral of this story is that I’m probably not supposed to care for animals.

I think I do a pretty damn good job caring for people.

Andrea Marie: We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show. Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood, midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and other things that irritate us.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Moms Unhinged, the podcast. I am joined today by the wonderful Colleen Brennan, one of our Chicago-based comedians. Welcome, Colleen.

Colleen Brennan: Hello.

Andrea Marie: Hello.

Colleen Brennan: So happy to be here.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. And today we’re just gonna, we’re just gonna talk, riff, kinda talk about pets. You know, it’s weird. Sometimes I think why do we do this?

Why do we have pets? We already have kids, isn’t it? Isn’t that enough?

Colleen Brennan: Enough [00:01:00] responsibility?

Andrea Marie: I know.

Colleen Brennan: How many can I be necessary?

to

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

so many different things with pets, and there are some good lessons. You know, there’s some good lessons in taking care of a pet, learn- you know, having the kids. A lot of times kids want pets. You know, we had pets growing up.

Colleen’s series of unsuccessful childhood pets

Andrea Marie: Did you have pets growing up?

Colleen Brennan: You know, we had a series of unsuccessful pets. I think that like my parents both grew up with dogs and cats and the whole thing, so they would tell us stories about their pets. So then we like did this gradual transition to pets, but each one ended in a really bad way.

Andrea Marie: Oh no.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah, yeah.

Like we started with fish, like got a huge aquarium, right? And then there were all these fish in it, and there were angelfish in there, but nobody really told us about the fish, and it was sort of like a misguided… So it ends up like, you know, each day we’d come down, this is disgusting, and like a new fish would be dead.

And we’d be like, “Well, where did? What happened?” And then all of a sudden there were like two angelfish [00:02:00] left. It was kind of horrible.

Andrea Marie: Yeah

Colleen Brennan: And then somebody finally told my parents, “You know, angelfish aren’t good for aquariums with other fish.” Apparently they like to eat and fight other fish. And I didn’t, you know, and I don’t know if this is really a thing or if we were just so inept at caring for wildlife.

But yeah, so that was bad. And then I got a hamster for a birthday who ended up being pregnant and-

Andrea Marie: Oh, no.

Colleen Brennan: Had a litter of baby hamsters the day after my birthday. And somebody, like it wasn’t from like a family member, it was from a friend who brought me a hamster. And so we went out and bought all the hamster stuff, and then she had like five or six babies the next day.

Andrea Marie: Oh my God.

Colleen Brennan: She like ate one by one each day, and I was like, “This is not…” It was…

Andrea Marie: She ate them?

Colleen Brennan: She ate the babies. And then we went back with my mom to the pet store, and my mom brought it back in. She brought the [00:03:00] whole, like what was like an aquarium, but it was a dry aquarium, and slammed it down on the pet shop desk and said, “This is what happened.

What are we gonna do about it?” And they’re like, “We can give you another hamster.” We like, “We don’t want another hamster. Can you take back at least the equipment? Can you take back the wheel, the little maze that we bought?” Yeah, it was just-

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s awful. That’s so ew, what a like, terrible lesson to learn as a child.

Colleen Brennan: But you know what? It the circle of life, and we did our best with it, and I think it built resilience. And then, I don’t know, I feel like I need one happy story from you about a pet, and then I’ll tell you my ultimate dysfunctional pet story.

Andrea Marie: I have some hap- I have happy stories about pets, but, I also have some, you know, weird stories too. But, you know, one kind of funny [00:04:00] story that I like to talk about is we had a lot of different pets for my boys growing up. Or not tons, but, you know, a lot of different ones, um, than I ever had.

Why rats make surprisingly good pets

Andrea Marie: I only grew up with cats, so we always had, we just had a couple of cats. We were gonna get like, they wanted hamsters or something like that, but I remember, I grew up… I did have hamsters growing up, and they’re terrible pets. They’re just, they only, like, they only are awake at night a lot of times.

They’re more nocturnal and, you know, they don’t, they bit, you know? And they’re just not pleasant. And so we did some research and found out that actually rats are a good pet. And it is so funny because whenever I tell people that we had rats, people are like, “Ew, oh, gross.” Except when you do run into other rat owners, they’re like, “Oh my God, rats are the best.”

And it is so true. They are such great great pets. And I’m talking [00:05:00] about, they’re called the fancy rats. They’re not like the little swamp rats that you get. But we had these fancy rats, and they’re like brown and white or gray and white. You know, they’re patchy, and they’re more cute, except for the tail, you know?

So the tail’s a little yucky. They were so great. We loved them so much that we would build, like, a whole like, little cardboard houses for them, and then one of ’em would, like, ride around on my shoulder and just loved hanging out. They love people. They love hanging out with people, and they’re just really, really friendly, fun, fun pets.

So we loved our rats. The one downside of the rats is they only live like a couple, two to three, two to four years kinda thing. So it’s, they’re short, you know, they’re short-lived, and that’s hard ’cause you kinda get attached to ’em ’cause they’re so cute.

They each have their own little personality. And so one time we were in the rescue, [00:06:00] center looking, and they really did. It was like-

Colleen Brennan: you had rescue rat?

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah, we had rescue rats.

Colleen Brennan: Oh God.

Andrea Marie: Rats. We had rescue rats. One time it was like a swamp rat. It was like, her name was Elvira, and she was like big and like, I was like, “This is not like a fancy rat.”

And they came in with like a glove and the rat was like, “Ah, ah.” We were like, “Okay, no, this is not, this is too far into the rescue situation.” She was rescued from the back alley. I don’t know, like it.

Colleen Brennan: That’s a misguided step to begin with, just a rescue rat. If you’re going to have a rat, maybe, maybe stick with the fancier rats.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Colleen Brennan: Oh my God. Okay.

So I had a patient who had a rat, and I used to see him at his house, and he would bring out the rat, and I, you know, they were very clean and very well-behaved, and it sat on [00:07:00] his shoulder like you were describing, but gosh darn it, that tail, Andrea.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, I know. It’s not for everybody, for sure.

Colleen Brennan: So did you get the rescue rat?

Andrea Marie: Well, we did not get Elvira. We were like, ” Nope, that’s a…” But like they do have like, they do also have the fancy rats in the rescue, you know, places, so that’s where we would get our rats. Because you can get them at the pet store or like at, I don’t know if they have rat breeders.

I have no idea. The extra fancy, I don’t know. I’m sure they do.

Colleen Brennan: so many rats in my neighborhood.. I start a rescue rat business now.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But they were a fun pet that not everyone… Like, it’s literally like the only the other rat owners like get it, you know, ’cause other people are like, “Ew.”

So I wouldn’t even tell people we ‘Cause were like

Colleen Brennan: How do the rats go with the cats?

Andrea Marie: Well, they were fine. Like the cats really didn’t pay attention.

You know, they, we had a big [00:08:00] giant cage, ’cause you do, rats are very smart and like so you do need to have a lot more stimulation for them, so we had a pretty big cage for them, so that they could do things.

Colleen Brennan: I’m so curious about whose idea it was in your family.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: To get the first rat. Like, how did that, what was the genesis of that moment?

Andrea Marie: it was kind of we started with like, hamsters, and then we were looking even at like, guinea pigs and other… You know what I mean? We started down that whole path. And my kids had like, so they started out with, we had hermit crabs, you know, for a little while. So hermit crabs, that’s an easy one.

We had some fish until there was, like, a fish massacre where the heater broke. You know, that was a bad day. But yeah, then we were looking at, you know, kinda leveling up to the next, they were talking about hamsters. And so then that’s where we went down the path, and it was actually, I think, my ex-husband who kind of found [00:09:00] out that rats were a really good pet for kids.

And so I was initially like, “Ugh,” and then I looked at, you know, did the research too, and I was like, “All right, you know, let’s give it a try.” And they were great. I loved them. They were so fun. So yeah. Yeah, and you don’t hear like, as many… it’s not… I don’t, I don’t hear as many people who are huge fans of like, ferrets or guinea pigs.

You know, guinea pigs are… I mean, I think a lot of them are kind of just, eh, you know? But rats are very interactive. They’re super smart. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, so now let’s hear your.

 The puppy that lasted one weekend

Colleen Brennan: Do you wanna hear my puppy story? So like, yeah, so we started with fish, and then we moved up to hamsters, and then we finally… And this is, I feel like this is all within, like, a two-year period of time [00:10:00] during my childhood, probably from like, 9 to 11, that window. And I was walking home from school with a friend, and we stopped at a house on the way back to her house where the dog had just had puppies.

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Colleen Brennan: Now, we had been begging, begging for a dog forever, okay? I had a older brother and a younger sister. And so all this time we’re begging for dogs, and I’m like, “Well, I’ve just solved the Brennan family dog problem,” because clearly these puppies on my way home from school are for my family. I went home and I’m like, “Mom, there are puppies.

These puppies are so cute. They’re wonderful.” Somehow we beat my mom down. I have no idea how.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. That’s what happens. You just beat them down. You just get beaten down.

Colleen Brennan: And she was, I mean, and she really wasn’t an easy collapse. You know what I mean? We really, I don’t know how, I don’t know what, what came together that day to get us a puppy, but gosh darn it, we drove over to these [00:11:00] people’s house and they brought us a puppy, and that’s all we do. I mean, I think you’re supposed to do other things, but that’s just how it went.

I think we were supposed to get like shots and stuff like that, but we get the puppy, we stop at the store and we get the puppy food and the bowls and the things and all this stuff and blanket and blah, da, da, da. And we get home, and this is a Friday. Saturday morning, I find out from my mom that the puppy has been up all night whining, and she’s been up all night with the puppy.

Andrea Marie: Oh my God. Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: And we didn’t know ’cause we were fast asleep.

Andrea Marie: No, I know. You’re like, “Guess who takes care of it? Mom. Mom does.”

Colleen Brennan: Oh, this is mom’s responsibility for our joy. So, we played with the puppy for the whole day Saturday. We’re having the most wonderful time. We’ve named it Skipper. The dog’s name was Skipper. Skipper, our puppy. We took it on a thousand walks, carried it around, it nibbled things, whatever. So we wake up Sunday morning.

My [00:12:00] brother spent the night with the puppy while it was whining, so great, we’re in. And then we’re Catholic, so it was Sunday morning. We went to church with another family that morning. My mom stayed home with the puppy ’cause we couldn’t leave the puppy alone, and my dad wasn’t around at that point.

Apparently, when we were at church, my mom was trying to take a shower, and the puppy was a problem and had to get out, so she grabbed the first thing she could, which was a trench coat, and she went, like, out naked with a trench coat on. I mean, it was buttoned, out and to walk the puppy while we were at church, okay?

We get home from church, and my mom’s like we’re not doing this.

Andrea Marie: Oh my God. I mean, she could probably just see like months of this stretched out in front of her like, “Nope.”

Colleen Brennan: This is her new life, right? Caring for our puppy. But she was also pretty good at, like, concocting a story so that it didn’t look like it was necessarily her [00:13:00] fault. She wanted to make it look like this was somehow related to the puppy. And she said, “The puppy has the mange.” And we’re like, “I don’t know what the mange is.”

Andrea Marie: The mange.

Colleen Brennan: What’s the mange?” We’re like, “What?” What is the mange? You know, and we’re like, “What do you mean the mange?” “It’s just, it’s not gonna make it. We gotta get this puppy back to its mother, back to its home, that’s what it needs.” And we’re like, “But we had it for a weekend.” And she’s like, “Nope, we gotta get the puppy back.”

So we have, like, a final day, we have a final day with the puppy. We have the last meal with the puppy. We have like the last walk with the puppy. This is such a horrible story. We take the puppy, we all pile into the station wagon. The puppy’s in the way back, ’cause that’s where puppies belong, and we take turns in the way back with the puppy, and we just drive around, I’m not kidding, for like an hour.

The house was maybe seven minutes away from our house, but we took like an hour to get there because we [00:14:00] were all crying, my mom, my brother, my sister, and I, with the puppy. Again, my dad is not there. I don’t know if he’s watching 60 Minutes or what he’s doing, but he’s not in the car. And then we drop the puppy off back at the house, and years later my mom defended this.

I mean, really, probably up until, you know, the last couple years where she was like, “That dog had the mange.” And we’re like, “Mom, can you explain to us what the signs of the mange are?”

Andrea Marie: I know. I love that so much because that was just such a term. Like, I haven’t heard that term since way, way, way back. And I don’t even know, yeah, what is, first of all, what is it? And I love that your mom has diagnosed it. She diagnosed it as having the mange. And back then you…

Like, now it’s like, it seems like you, there’s all kinds of things around like when do you separate the puppy and like, you know, like all the stuff. And there it was just like, “I don’t know. Pick it up. There. Take it home. Sure. Go.” You know? And [00:15:00] then the mange. That is amazing. I love that. I love that story.

But it’s hard to, like… for sure, like, it’s gotta be hard to be like, “We just can’t keep it. We can’t do it.” And, you know, it’s much easier, like you said, to blame it on the puppy itself.

Colleen Brennan: On the mange. Blame it on the mange. Blame on the mange. Yeah, that was a song.

Andrea buys a rabbit without permission

Andrea Marie: I have a story about bringing home and animal like, but yeah. I didn’t even ask. So here’s what happened. We went to, my friend and I, I think we were in fourth or fifth grade at this point, and we had, babysitting money or something like that. And so we were, there was this Wheaton Pets shop in our town, and so that’s where, you know, fourth and fifth graders would hang out, look at all the, look at all the pets.

And so my friend and I decided that we had enough money to get this rabbit. And so [00:16:00] we bought the rabbit with our own money, and I was like, “Sure. Sure. My parents’ll let us have it. We’ll both buy it. It’ll be both our rabbits. Our, both of ours rabbit, and you know, we’ll just keep it at my house.”

And like, I was totally sure that my parents would let us have it. Well, the pet store owner made us sign something that said we wouldn’t bring it back.

Colleen Brennan: I don’t think you were of legal age to sign. I don’t even think that would hold up in court

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. I know, right? Like the pet, pet store owner thinks that, like, our parents are gonna be like, “Well, you signed it. Okay. You’re 11.” You know?

Colleen Brennan: Your 11-year-old daughter walked into our store today, said she wanted a rabbit. We wanted her money. She signed a paper. That sucker’s yours.

Andrea Marie: I know. I don’t even think we bought any food. We probably didn’t have any idea that to buy food or anything. We just had enough money for the rabbit. And so we bring the, I don’t even know how we got [00:17:00] it home, ’cause we walked to the store. So we must have walked the rabbit home with us, and I get home and I put it in a box in the garage, like and my parents come home and they’re like, ” You did what?”

And so then we had to go back to the pet store, and my parents were like, “Listen, this, no, you can’t make these little, these girls sign something to say we have the rabbit now.” So we did return it. I don’t remember. I’m hoping we got our money back. I don’t know. But yeah.

Colleen Brennan: A binding contract.

Andrea Marie: So I had a rabbit for a couple of hours, you know?

Colleen Brennan: Well, you didn’t have enough time to actually bond with the rabbit.

Andrea Marie: I mean, is there really bonding with a rab- I mean?

Colleen Brennan: I don’t know.

Andrea Marie: I say that, now I’m gonna get a bunch of rabbit owners who are like, “You absolutely can bond with rabbits.” Yeah, we didn’t… I think the rabbit did bite us actually, now that I think about it. Yeah, so we didn’t really bond with the rabbit.

Colleen Brennan: Was it the only rabbit in the pet store or did [00:18:00] you like particularly choose that?

Andrea Marie: I’m not sure. I can’t remember if there were multiple rabbits to choose from. Probably, I mean, it, maybe just one or two. But like, yeah. ‘Cause it was a small store. I remember there was just usually like, one or two of everything. Like it was pretty tiny little shop. And so you know, I mean, it’s so funny.

Like, you, sometimes you try and wear the parents down. Other times you just take it upon yourself to get a pet by yourself. So yeah, that didn’t work. Didn’t go.

When an “easy” fish becomes Mom’s responsibility

Andrea Marie: Well I was really glad my kids never took it upon themselves to get a pet by themselves. but they, we lived like in the city, in Chicago, not the suburbs, so it was hard. They could find rats, and I’m glad they didn’t bring any of those home, ’cause I think those were those swamp rats you were talking about.

Not the fancy ones. Not. in Chicago, and they’re big.

Colleen Brennan: But did, like for the boys, I have two boys, [00:19:00] and the oldest one really wanted a fish. And I was like, “This we can handle.”

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah.

Colleen Brennan: I can handle fish. I won’t buy angelfish. I won’t get the o- And all my friends were encouraging me, “Colleen, you need to get a pet for the b-” One of my good friends is like, “You should get them a bird.”

Andrea Marie: Oh gosh. Oh.

Colleen Brennan: What am I gonna do with a bird? And this is my friend who’s had like, she grew up with a- sh’es pretty much Dr. Doolittle. She’ll stop the car, I’m not exaggerating, in the middle of the street if she sees an injured animal. She will pick it up, bring it into her car, heal it, and then take it somewhere.

And this is not an, a abnormal thing. Anyway, so she’s especially the one who was like, “You’ve gotta get them a pet. It’s a great way to learn.” Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. So we’ll start with fish. So we got a betta fish.

Andrea Marie: Uh huh. Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: Which was supposed to be easy. You just need like a bowl.

Andrea Marie: Little in one little pellet. Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah. And I was like, “I think we can handle that.” So we got the, there [00:20:00] wasn’t a lot of thought put into the naming of the fish. Like I looked at my kid, I was, “Oh, what are we gonna name that fish?” And he’s like, “Fishy Fishy.” I’m like, “We could do better than that. I think we, like you wanna think about that.”

“Nope, nope. Fishy Fishy.” I was like, “Okay. Fishy Fishy it is.” So he lasted, I don’t know, I think like three or four months. From what I understand, I don’t think they’re supposed to last that long.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, they don’t, I don’t think they last. Some of, I’ve heard that some people can have them a long time. It really depends, I think.

Colleen Brennan: Yeah. And I feel like we were in, within the average. It wasn’t like, it’s not like we killed the fish. That’s what I’m try- I’m trying to show you this.

Andrea Marie: You did.

Colleen Brennan: That.

Andrea Marie: You did.

Colleen Brennan: We can successfully, maybe me, have an animal for a period of time. So, we got a second fish, and that one was Thunder Fish.

And I was noticing at this point that the boys’ interest in the fish was waning.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Colleen Brennan: Significantly, right? ‘Cause now they’re not cleaning it, they’re not doing anything to take care of it. So one night, you know, my [00:21:00] husband’s traveling, I got the kids. I’m looking at this fish tank and I’m like, “I can’t see the fish, so that’s bad.

So now I’ve gotta clean the thing.” And I told everybody, ” I am not responsible for this fish. This is your responsibility.” And so they’re asleep one night, and we don’t like, I don’t know how to clean this bowl, and I think I had talked to my husband, so he’s like, “You just get the fish out, put the fish in a little container, clean it out, put the fish back in.”

Well, we didn’t have a net.

Andrea Marie: Oh, yeah.

Colleen Brennan: So I don’t know how to get this fish out, so the only thing I could find was a slotted spoon.

Andrea Marie: A slotted spoon.

Colleen Brennan: I thought I was a genius. I’m like, “Oh, it’s like….” I mean, you

Andrea Marie: Colander? Hey, why not?

Colleen Brennan: I probably should have gotten a soup ladle or something. I don’t know, but I got a slotted spoon [00:22:00] and take it out, put it in the other container, and it’s kind of funky in the other container. And I was like, “It’s probably ’cause it’s not used to the other container.” I clean it out, I get the fish, and I don’t slotted spoon it back in.

I think I just sort of gently pour it in, you know, because I’m not a monster. And then the next morning I notice that the fish isn’t like… He’s still alive, and he’s still swimming, and he seems pretty happy, but he can’t get up. Like, he can only get up a certain part, and then he just kind of floats back down, then he’s up and, but like…

Oh, I know, Andrea, I feel so bad. This is like, a terrible this is the horror story. Okay. So I’m looking at him, and the boys are feeding him, and the fish is trying to get to the top, but he can’t get up there, so I’m like trying to poke the flakes down into the water, and I can’t even get them down.

And then I realize, I think I sliced off his like dorsal fin.

Andrea Marie: Oh gosh. Oh man. Oh shoot.

Colleen Brennan: With a slotted spoon. So we would try to feed the fish. You know, we would like try to bring him up to the [00:23:00] top so he could get the food. And then after a few weeks it realized that, like, “You guys, I think we gotta….”

Andrea Marie: oh.

Colleen Brennan: “I think we gotta do it.” And they were like, “Okay.”

The surprising cost of pet care

Andrea Marie: Well, and I think the other thing too that’s a challenge nowadays that I find is that, you know, there are so many things available with vets, and the vet care has gotten so good that it’s sometimes really expensive to have a pet. Like, I remember we gave our cat two different knee surgeries.

I’m like, like, the cat is having knee surgery. It’s a lot. And you can get the pet insurance, but like, I don’t know. Like it’s sometimes I’m like, “Oh my goodness, I don’t…” It’s just a lot. Yeah. Pet care is not for the faint of heart is what I’m trying to say.

Colleen Brennan: I’m sorry, I’m stuck on the cat knee surgery, ’cause I’ve had a lot of friends with dogs [00:24:00] who’ve gotten dog surgeries, and there have been some, you know… But I don’t understand a cat knee surgery. Like, how did the, why did the cat need the knee?

Andrea Marie: We noticed it was, like, limping around. It couldn’t put any weight on the knee, and, like, yeah. So we took it into the vet, and that’s what we found. And then, you know, the knee, first knee surgery didn’t really work, and it’s like, “Okay.” You know? It’s like so, there’s so much, so much to owning a pet.

And maybe it’s a good… I mean, I think it’s all good lessons for stuff like that, and families, and, you know, just like as you navigate through some of these challenging things. And, you know, the grieving process when you lose a pet and stuff like that is all good for, you know, for understanding life and how it works.

But sometimes I’m like, “Why are we making our lives so much more complicated?”

Colleen Brennan: I think I am a great pet [00:25:00] aunt.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

That’s really good pet aunt. I can go in and I can feed… I’ve been told that I, there was a period of time where I was like, “We’re gonna definitely get a dog. We’re gonna definitely get a dog. I shouldn’t deprive my kids of a dog.” And then I had friends who were telling me, “You know, Colleen,” this is actually kind of beautiful, one of my good friends said, “With a dog, you understand exactly what unconditional love is.”

Colleen Brennan: Mm. “You’ve never felt like you do with your children.” You know, she’s like, “I get it.” She’s like, “But there’s something different about that love from a dog.” And she said, “It’s just so pure and fabulous.”

Andrea Marie: Aw, yeah.

Colleen Brennan: Like, “We should really… I want that kind of love in my…” And then she’s like, “You can’t get a dog.”

“You can’t. You cannot get a dog.”

Andrea Marie: handle it. That’s so funny. You gotta know yourself, for Well, this has just been so much fun, and for those of you listening, if you have some pet stories, please share ’em with [00:26:00] us. You know, put it in the comments, send us a message. We’d love to hear it. We’re gonna start working in more stories from our listeners, so feel free to, share that with us.

I know that we’ve all had some, some wild pet times. So yeah. So thank you so much, Colleen. Why don’t you let people know where they can find you in the future?

Colleen Brennan: you can find me with Moms Unhinged obviously, but also, you can check out my website colleenisfunny.com. I also have a podcast called Defending Indiana, which isn’t about the state of Indiana per se. It’s just about how we all need to kind of step back a little bit and look at some nuance when we’re looking at people, places, and things, and we have some fun and some great guests.

So check that out. Yeah. That’s it.

Andrea Marie: Awesome. We’ll have those links in the show notes, so thank you so much. Thanks everyone for tuning in.

Colleen Brennan: Thanks, Andrea.

Andrea Marie: Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on the socials to [00:27:00] get more comedy clips.