Tom’s home was foreclosed: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of its vacancy was signed by the bank, the property management company, and the Utica police.

For a week or more we noticed there was a large dumpster in the driveway of our neighbor’s home and he was nowhere to be seen. Its a tough time in the Detroit area and these things happen. A property management sticker, the housing equivalent of a cadaver’s toe-tag, hung from the front door and the lights started turning on and off with the precision that only a collection of timed switches can provide*.     Shortly thereafter Heather began noticing a cat. It was jet black, and was normally laying under the tree in the front yard or sitting on the porch. In the days that followed we speculated that, perhaps, this was just a neighborhood cat that Tom had been feeding and it was visiting the home from habit and hope**. The days turned into a week and still the cat watched us coming and going, a black silhouette with moon eyes shining from the porch every evening; the cat had been abandoned.

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Here is a list of animals I wish I could have as pets.

1 – Llama
    Llamas have the prettiest eyes of any quadruped, bar-none. No one can deny this. Plus they have lips like fingers and therefore can play the banjo if properly trained and so inclined.
    Lastly, their poop is a fairly inoffensive collection of pebbles–much like rabbit droppings–and they naturally attempt to poop in the same spot each time, making for easy clean-up.
    I could keep him in my back yard. Whenever I feel blue, I could go stare into his languid eyes and slowly draw my grandmother’s silver, filigreed brush through his luxurious hair.

2 – Goat
    Goats have sideways pupils, are surefooted, are not picky eaters, and are usually very friendly if raised from a kid. They sound like Fran Dresher, which makes me think of Spinal Tap whenever I feed one of them; this is a happy memory for me and one which I can only reproduce by remaining in close proximity to a goat.
    I don’t like sheep, however. Their coats are messy to deal with and they attract cartoon wolves.
    A goat could live in my garage, and I’d feed him only the best kitchen waste in return for his undying love and gratuitous bleating.

3 – Bat
    I don’t want a vampire foxbat. I want one of the little, cute kind of bats we get in Michigan. Bug eating fellows what can comfortably fit in a lady’s brassier, I would keep mine in my car. His glove-compartment guano could provide me with the saltpeter I so desperately need as well as a bug-free car interior. Someone once told me that bats all turn left as they leave the cave; in my mind this makes them natural NASCAR fans. I won’t hold this against them*.

4 Chicken
    So stupid that they’ll be fooled into tasting the same inedible limestone pebble multiple times in a row, a chicken is nature’s Rob Schneider**. I would like to train one to fall asleep in my lap while I watch television, and to possibly steal Cheetos and corn chips from me.

* Can’t be much worse than a relatively colossal breast. Imagine a boob the size of a house. Now imagine you are strapped against it with a couple dozen square yards of premium sail-cloth. Depending on what you’re into I think it might be more traumatic than being publicly slandared as a NASCAR fan.

** Admit it, when you think of Herr Schneider your mind centers immediately on the cloaca.