Fathers are pushovers

Bobby knew that fathers are pushovers when it comes to pets, especially gerbils.

Sure, Dad talks tough, "There will be no pets in this house ever. And that's final!" But just warm him up a bit with a trip to the zoo, then a visit to a friend with some brand-new baby gerbils. All it takes is preparation, timing and technique, and suddenly he'd be saying, "But just one gerbil would be so lonely all by himself."

Dad would be the one delighted at the birth of new gerbils and unable to let any of them go. He'd be the one running to the store for more pet stuff.

Bobby had heard all about this weakness of fathers from his friend Jimmy at school. He had seen Jimmy's house turned into a maze of pet cages and tubes. And he knew he could make the same thing happen at his house.

Yes, nine-year-old Bobby was quite proud of himself, sitting in the car with his sister Heather and brother Mikey on their way back from the zoo. He knew just what to do and how to do it to start a whole gerbil adventure.

"Didn't you just love the baby bears?" asked Heather.

"I liked the baby elephant," said Mikey.

"And the baby chimpanzee," added Heather.

Bobby just smiled. They couldn't have done better if he had given them a script to read.

"The children love animals so much," Mommy said, resting her head on Daddy's shoulder, as he drove.

"Mommy, can we have a dog?" shouted Mikey from the back seat, "Please Mommy! Please!"

"Perfect," thought Bobby, "just perfect."

"No, Mommy!" protested Heather, pushing Mikey aside. "A kitten! We want a kitten."

"A dog! Mikey and me want a dog!" insisted Bobby, laughing at himself as he said it.

Mommy leaned close to Daddy and whispered in his ear, "Maybe we should, dear. They do so like animals."

"Baloney," said Daddy. "The kids themselves are more than we can handle -- a four-year-old, a first-grade girl, and a third-grade boy. And you want more than that?"

Bobby leaned over from the back seat and quietly suggested, "Just a little pet."

"Look, you have a dozen fish, a huge frog, and, at last count, 213 ants. That's plenty enough pets," insisted Daddy.

"But, Dad," Bobby whined, in his most pitiful, annoying voice. "That's just not the same."

"Yeah, Daddy," Heather agreed. "They aren't furry like kittens are."

"Yes," added Mommy, in a soft convincing voice, "you can't expect them to hug ants, can you?"

"Or frogs, either," said Heather, with a grimace.

"Never!" Daddy bellowed.

Mommy moved away. Mikey started crying.

"He hit me," whined Heather.

"Who?" asked Daddy.

"Mikey."

"Why?"

"Because I hit him."

"Why?"

"Because he hit me."

"And you want pets?" Daddy asked Mommy.

"Forget I ever said anything," Mommy answered coldly.

For the rest of the ride, the car was perfectly quiet, except for a few whines and cries and tickles and tussles in the back seat.

Then Bobby innocently asked, "Could we stop and see the Buckners?"

Daddy couldn't help but feel guilty for being so mean to such perfect children and such a wonderful wife, so of course he said, "Okay, why not?"

Heather piped up, "Oh, good! Jimmy has the cutest gerbils. Bobby took me over to see them just last week."

Daddy was so glad that the family was happy again that he wasn't at all suspicious and didn't even notice or try to figure out why Bobby would have had taken his little sister to visit at his friend's house, and why he now wanted the whole family to visit there.

Heather was the first inside the door and the first to run to the gerbil cages -- room after room of gerbil cages. Soon she had one brown and white furry creature cuddled next to each cheek. Then Mikey, then Bobby, then Mommy were cuddling more of them, too.

There was no way they could leave that house without bringing home gerbils -- three gerbils, one for each child.

They made a quick trip to the pet store for food, a 10-gallon fish tank and a screen they could put over tank to make it a cage.

Then all the kids could talk about or think about was gerbils.

Daddy, who was in the mood to play video games, was a bit put out when no one would play with him.

But Mommy insisted, "It's good for them, dear."

They named the brown and white gerbil "Chester." The two all-brown ones, who were impossible to tell apart, the kids called "Frick and Frack."

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