CONTENT WARNING: Animal Injury/Death

I was hired to paint a backlog of repaired cars in a makeshift auto body shop. They had done a quick installation of an old spray paint booth. The exhaust fan ducts were routed out through a window at the back of the building.

I was under a lot of pressure to paint several repairs the first day, so when the fan system and ducts made a lot of noise each time they turned it on, I figured I would look into it after the backlog of cars was done.

At the end of the day, the boss called me into his office where I saw a woman sitting in the customer chair. She was crying so hard that her makeup was running down her face. He told me to take her keys, go out back and get her car, and handle it!

So, without saying a word, I took the keys with the Cadillac key fob from the table and went on my way out back to a public parking lot behind our shop. It was there that I saw why she was crying so hard. Her white Cadillac was parked under the window where my fan system was.

The car was covered from front to back with blood and feathers… along with various other pieces of several pigeons that were inside my fan system each time I used it. The installers forgot to put a screen over the exit.

The boss seemed to think it was all my fault. Oh, well.

This is a retail moment I’ve encountered that made me happy.

I was at the register, and I kept hearing a chirping noise. I didn’t think much of it and suspected it was somebody’s ringtone going off; it would not have been the first time someone’s phone rang while in line. I continued on and called over the next customers: a man and a woman.

As they got closer, the chirping noise gets louder.

Me: *Conversationally* “What is that chirping noise?”

Customers: “Oh, that’s our baby chicks. We just got them today, and we couldn’t keep them outside because it’s too hot out. Do you want to see them?”

I obviously said yes, because why would I not want to see some baby chicks? Then, they presented me with a box with airholes in it, containing six or seven baby chicks, all different colors. The pure joy I felt when seeing those baby chicks was indescribable.

When I was in high school, my grandparents found a stray cat. It was very friendly, very social (to the point of walking up to my parents’ dog and rubbing on his leg affectionately with absolutely no hesitation), and very, very round.

My grandparents were hesitant to adopt a cat, but this one was just a real sweetheart, so they started putting food and water out for it. They were adamant that it would not be going inside. Their resolve lasted for about two weeks before the cat had a bed inside the house.

But as I said, this cat had an extremely girthy midsection. Grandpa decided to take the cat to the vet to find out when the kittens were due.

The vet was nice enough and gave the cat a thorough exam, pronouncing it to be roughly four years old and in good health, but proceeded to look Grandpa right in the eyes and say:

Vet: “Your neutered male won’t be having kittens any time soon.”

I used to do housesitting jobs for spare cash when I was young. I’d just go over to someone’s house once or twice a day and take care of whatever they needed done while they were away. It was easy enough, but every now and again, something odd would happen, and I’d have to figure out what to do myself since I worked alone most of the time.

One day, I was checking in on the house of a family friend living across town. He wanted me to water his plants and feed his cat while he was away. Most important to this story were the tomato plants he had growing out back. It was an absolute scorcher of a summer day, so I took care of the indoor plants and fed the cat so I’d have some time to cool off before watering the tomatoes.

When I got out, I heard a weird splashing noise. The friend had set up a large barrel of water for me to use, and the sound was coming from there. Concerned, I opened it up. To my complete and utter shock, there was a bat drowning in the barrel. It must’ve tried to get at the mosquitoes on the surface of the water (stagnant pools of water are hotbeds for breeding mosquitoes) and fallen in somehow.

To this day, I still have no idea how it got in there or how long it had been splashing and flailing. I just focused on how to fix this. To water the plants, I was supposed to use a scoop to get some water out of the barrel into a cup and carry it over to the plants, so I took the scoop and carefully lifted the bat out of the water.

The poor thing was soaked and shivering, so I set it down in the garden in a sunny spot to help it dry off and warm up, with easy access to shade for when it felt well enough to move again. I kept watching it until it stopped trembling. At that point, I poked it a little with the very tip of the scoop to see if it was still alive, and it let out a little angry squeak in my direction.

I went to take care of the plants at that point, and it was gone when I got back. I hope it was okay. Still, it was definitely not the first thing I expected to find that day.

My mother was a teacher at the same elementary school that I attended. This was back when you could have classroom pets, and my mother had a small rabbit (Dwarf Dutch) who loved to eat paper. I had a cockatiel who also spent the weekdays in my mother’s classroom. My bird also liked to shred and eat paper.

One day after school, I was doing homework in my mother’s classroom while she was in a meeting. I had both animals out. I stood up to sharpen my pencil, and my cockatiel took the opportunity to snack on the corner of my worksheet. I caught her quickly and moved her away from my work.

A little while later, I completed my worksheet and decided to take a bathroom break. When I opened the door, the brief gust of wind sent my worksheet floating to the floor. I, however, did not notice. When I got back from the bathroom, I found that the rabbit had eaten a chunk out of my homework.

When I turned in the nibbled-upon work, my teacher raised an eyebrow. Luckily, as a coworker of my mother, she was aware of my mother’s animal friends, and she had a good sense of humor.

She pointed to the big bites.

Teacher: “The rabbit?”

I just nodded.

Teacher: “And the little ones?”

Me: “My bird.”

Teacher: “…At least it wasn’t a dog!”