Children of the Four Legged Variety

The Rev. and I don't have children. We would like to have children, but it hasn't happened yet. I'll spare you the details of our fertility check-ups. I know, I know, pastor's families should be similiar in population to small countries, or at least a small tribe, and many of The Rev.'s classmates have enough children for a game of full court basketball. I don't bother with names; I just need numbers, as in child #1, child #2, child #3, etc. When The Rev. talks to his parishioners about prayer, he always tells them to go to God with a washtub, rather than a Dixie cup. As of late, I have been praying for six children. I figure if I get at least one, I'll be happy.

Instead of children, we have pets. Three cats and a dog, to be exact. The last pet we acquired was a little gray kitten that The Rev. calls "demon kitty." I call her Minnie Pearl. She was my present for my thirtieth birthday, and yesterday she joined the other three animals in our house who share status as the vestal virgins. If you don't understand, she got fixed. And she is pitiful. She is a domestic long haired cat, and for the longest time I secretly thought she looked like a walking carpet, but with her belly shaved (and there is nothing more pitiful than a shaved cat, think about it), she has this weird, anorexic look about her. She also has chunks of her tail fur missing because, ahem, she had a little trouble getting out of the catbox without taking some of it with her, so I hacked it out of her fur with a pair of kitchen shears. She is walking around the house with this tufted tail and no belly and side fur, looking like a character straight out of Dr. Seuss. You can't make this stuff up.

What gets me is that The Rev. says he hates cat, but I really think he likes them. I listen to him talk to Smokey, Butch, and Minnie, and I know he likes having them around. Tonight we had to go to the pet store and he fretted for nearly an hour about which food to buy them. Then we had to figure out which treats they needed and if we should get some catnip, too. What would have taken me 15 minutes, took us nearly an hour, after all of the discussion over hard food vs. soft food, and what about Smokey and his peeing problem? It should be interesting when we have children without four legs and fur.

I know that at some point tonight I will wake up to tell my husband to stop snoring; I will shove the dog to get her to stop snoring; I will have to push Minnie away because she wants to knead on my stomach, and I will probably accidentally kick Butch off the bed. Smokey sleeps in my back, so at some point I will probably have to push him off the bed, too.

And I wonder why I don't have any children?