Will there ever be a pet ?

Will there ever be a pet in my home ? NO! NEVER! 

During the day, I had staffs asking me twice if I would want to buy the cats. They’ve never asked me during the other times we were there. Maybe they saw how loving lil’ one is towards Luna (she loves grey colour cats) and me quite friendly towards the cats there. Or maybe the prospective owner decided not to buy Luna in the end, so he was trying to sell Luna away?

While I was there I also had a conversation with an angmoh parent who brought his son all the way from York, UK to SIN only the day earlier for a short holiday. He asked me if I love cats seeing how I mummy talk to the can’t-be-bothered-with-me cats (looks as if I really luuuvrre cats. Ah nia only good in acting lah!) and if I will keep one at home. I was more excited in getting my message across to him before he could complete his sentence with a “No! I will never have one.” loudly (when I get too excited, my volume increases😅) in the cafe filled with cat loving people. Haha! 

I don’t particularly love cats I don’t mind them as long as they don’t scratch me. I love dogs but loving them doesn’t mean I need to keep them, right? Perhaps I don’t really love them that much to warrant 1001 positive reasons for me to 养狗. Lil’ one kept stressing to me “you know they say having pets is an stress-reliever?” 

我的天啊！什么意思？It’s stress-reliever for them, the girls. It's stressFULL for me! Hubby never had any pets at home when growing up so he is heartless and feelingless 😅 towards them. When we had Thistle in Tampines during our pak-tor days he would only occasionally bend down to stroke my super friendly Thistle and then ignoring her most of the time. Thistle would often go to where he is and lay down next to his feet, so many times he would use his feet to rub rub her body lightly 😂 which she didn't mind coz it feels like stroking to her. So just by reading this, there’s no need to guess who will be doing most of the caring job - ME! Why do I have to give myself additional job when all I want to do now that my girls are older is to take a step back and relax. 已经够忙照顾两个孩子这么多年、老娘已经累了奔溃了。

A suggestion

Friends and strangers ever suggested “why not let the kids try? You never know they may know how to care.” My question to them is “how to try?”

I do not want to be under the spell - feeling happy when paying $ for the cat or dog, then when walking to the car I start regretting. 一后悔就是几年的后悔. Having a pet will be a chore for me and I'm not sure who to start hating. Hate the pet? Hate the kids? or hate myself triply for giving in to their 一分钟热度。 

养了二十多年两个孩子我还不知道她们的性格吗? Lil’ one can’t even keep her room tidy, the girls throw things around for the magician mummy to pick up after them and wash. Do you think they will do everything to care for the pet without me putting in even more effort in cleaning after the pet and them? Do you think they will want to shower the pet? Now as they are older, I don't even think they have the time to walk the dog. At least I don't have to walk the ungrateful independent cats. 

But no, that’s a very bad suggestion to even think of. So what if it didn’t work out? What was I going to do with the pets? Giveaway? 不如先省这个麻烦。

House housekeeping

The house will not be the same anymore. Not like caning or a time-out will help discipline a young teething dog/cat for chewing the table legs or accidentally peeing on the sofa. Having a pet means taking care of a child all over again and I don't want to do that. The good thing is that pets don't have to go through our atas education system. 

I can't imagine how even more frustrated I'd be seeing fur flying all over the house. Just a trip to the cat cafe I had to bring a lint remover and removed the strands of fur on our clothes before we step into the car. How about the whole load of laundry at home if we ever have a pet? Am I suppose to lint remove all clothings before throwing them into the washing machine? Double job!  Am I suppose to lint remove all clothings again before ironing as I only iron them only once a week. 很难啦！我又没有女佣又没有重点来打扫 。做死我自己。Just a slightly less than 2hr trip to cat cafe, I had to ask lil' one to bring another pair of socks to change to once we're done so fur don't get transferred inside the shoes. As for me, I wore socks when I was inside the cafe and removed it when leaving. I made sure I tied the plastic bag up so no stray furs flying around in the car. Back at home, the clothing and socks we wore are washed separately from the rest of the laundry. Instead of putting them in the laundry bag, she had to put her clothes in the common toilet so that I can run the lint remover thru once again before throwing our measly 2 sets of clothings into the 38mins wash (waste water and laundry pod). I ran lint remover thru the 2 pair of socks and handwashed them separately. Yah, I know if I ever have a pet I'll probably have fur all over the house and it's normal to walk out with strands of fur stuck on our clothes, looking like huge pets ourselves. Not mentally prepared for such tedious job. I can't imagine how much effort mom had put in to keep our house cleaned all those years. No pets smell in my home at all too! Am I able to stick to mom’s standard? All I know is if I ever have a pet, I’ll spend more time vacuuming up the house. I’ll have no time for social media then 😅. 

Oh! And not to mention the unseen dirt the pet will bring/have. For sure, I’d want to wash its feet before letting it step into the house after returning from its walks. When we return home, humans can walk and turn on the tap to wash our feet. Can pets do that? 

After peeing and shitting 💩, it gets stuck on the butts, tail and private parts and then it goes around lying on the floor; or worst if it jumps onto the sofa and backside itchy and rub rub…..yucks! I’ll definitely send my never-will-I-ever-have dog to obedience school and toilet train it lah! Still… at least I did clean my kids up after they pee and poo. Now that they’re older they do it themselves. Am I suppose to start cleaning up after the pet?

I think I have an illness. 我太夸张了， 洁癖 mysophobia. I have this strange habit that my girls are not allowed to lie on the sofa or bed with their dirty clothes. As we all only use one toilet to shower and definitely need to take turns after all returning home at the same time. The ‘dirty person’ is allowed to sit on the dining chair or floor. I will always clean the dining chair after the person or me gets up. Definitely change to home clothes. As long as the moment we step out of the house, even to downstairs to open the letterbox or across for a meal we WILL shower again and change back to clean clothes. 

This practice is also done in hotels. We get back to the room we wouldn’t want to go out again. We don’t sit on the chair with dirty clothes coz what if someone wants to sit on it with clean clothes. We don’t lie on the bed with dirty clothes coz it’s a sleeping space. 

Can you imagine how much expectation I will impose on the pet? Dirty fur, sit on the floor. Can it follow my instructions?  

Miscellaneous things around the house

Essential oil : I love to use essential oil to keep the house clean and air smell nice. Some oils are not pet friendly so this can be tricky. I made a simple collage. The 🌸 by the side are those I use often. I hate clove actually but it’s in Thieves blend which I use for cleaning most times. My favourite citrus-y and lavender are toxic!! Rosemary is a very good odour control oil I swear by that and it’s toxic! Wah…. how? I’m not prepared to change my lifestyle just coz we have the pet. 

Technically I can steam clean the house if I choose to. ML does that as Summer has sensitive skin cannot have fragrance in the house and they have a dog, she has two reasons to steam clean her house whereas I only have one. Hers is the Rainbow system whilst mine is a small Karcher with small capacity. How many times do I have to keep refilling water just for one room? Let alone the whole house. I dunno if I’ll be more exhausted steam-cleaning the house or the walks to the toilet and kitchen to refill water 🤣. 

I also hate using corded machines. 

Water feature : I have this water feature in the PES that I throw in chlorine tablets for mozzies prevention. It’s definitely not pet friendly. So what am I suppose to do? Cover up the water feature? Then the free flowing water supposedly to bring us luck and fortune gets locked up in the cover!  

PES : How? I mean I also want my plants there. Will the pet eat and play with the soil? If I wanted to give my pets more walking space it means I may need to cover up the PES with full ziptrak especially if it’s a cat who loves to leave the house without leaving any 便条 notes for the owner. Dunno if the cat eloped or the cat just want to go walk walk for one hour. At least for dogs, they will faithfully stay with you coz they need you to feed them.  

Baits/Repellents : I do leave roaches baits and repellents and lizard trap in the house. I hope I won’t have to deal with the dumb pet getting its paw stuck onto the sticky lizard trap or eating up the camphor baits. 

Sneezing/allergic 

I didn't have much problem with it at home coz mom was the one who did everything and cleaned the house BUT I did have this problem when I went to a friend's house when I was in secondary school and when we were both in working world, I kept sneezing in her house the times I was there. I can't remember when or what happened but the doctor at Tampines said I could be allergic to dog's fur. Huh? We had dogs since I was young. How is it that I have no problem sniffing Thistle and resting my head on top of her? Thistle wasn't allowed on our beds and she also wasn't allowed on the sofa, she was the only dog we had that went through obedience school. 

During my adult life... yup the time when I had to go to my neighbour's home to pick up something about 1-2years back and lil' one wanted to follow me to see her ragdoll. I was rubbing my nose the time I was there. Actually I kindda forgot about this possibly allergy thing until I got back home wondering why my nose was uncomfortable. Not sure what triggered it. Maybe it was dust? If a place is too dirty and dusty I get uncomfortable nose as well. Now you know why I'm so hard up to make sure I clean my house. I didn't have that reaction in the cat cafes with so many cats. Funny right? 

So exactly what am I allergic to? Unless I go for an allergy test then I’ll know the answer. 

Yucky thoughts

Cats are good cockroach catchers and I definitely need one to catch any invaders. Live in first floor problem. But hor …… I had this funny conversation with Iggy last week when I brought him to the cat cafe (his first time) about cat licking clean its private part and eating cockroaches or whatever insects it caught and ate without us knowing and the cat come and lick and kiss me. Yucks! 🥴

At least the dumb dog wouldn’t know how to catch cockroaches so all I can possibly get is its lick from after licking its private part. 

Medical

Having a pet means after the chipping and vaccination, I’m liable for any other medical attention expenses. Definitely cheaper than giving the girls their private tuitions but ….. now that I can save money from no more tuitions, please no more additional expenses. 

Pet hotels

When we had small fishes in Punggol, I had to bring the small tank over to mom’s place to make sure the fishes are fed. Now I can simply leave the house just like that, so carefree. 

With a pet I need to find pet hotels or someone who is willing to pet sit for me for the duration. 

CONCLUSION

I’ve listed so much negatives so it’s definitely a NO NO for me. The girls can keep it in their own house next time, not in my house.