Dear Pet Lady,
I love your feature and the pearls it bestows. I have a problem, though. There is a boy that I like, and I think he may like me too, but situations and circumstances as they are, it just hasn’t happened yet. It may be that we are both just too passive, as neither of us is seeing other people. Should I quit being such a pussy and ask him out? I think I just answered my own question.
BTW—my Endler’s guppies just won’t breed! Why?
Gutless with guppies
Dear Pearl,
The Pet Lady is still attempting to recover from a scene to which she was a horrified witness recently. Upon arrival at a festive f괥 in the hinterlands of Lake City, the Pet Lady was most pleased to find a full spectrum of libations as well as a coconut cheesecake, homemade by her charming, if slightly disheveled, host. The Pet Lady cannot abide coconut and yet found said cheesecake little short of revolutionary. The hand-rolled cigarettes dispensed by her rumpled host were a splendid accompaniment as well (very soothing to the throat).
Meanwhile, a large pup marauded about the place, and the Pet Lady was looking on indulgently when it disappeared into some dread store of its horrible dog-things and returned with a broad length of vile, dirty rope clamped in its muzzle. A gentleman seated on a settee with his lady friend gamely grasped one end of said vile rope and initiated a primitive tug-of-war with the canine, growling in a doglike fashion, to which the dog replied in kind. (The Pet Lady disapproves of humans behaving like animals in polite company, not to mention the unsanitary nature of toying with a vile dog-rope and then handling hors d’oeuvres, but she maintained a stoic politesse.) Then, horror of horrors, the man put the frayed, dirty, horrid, wet, awful end of the vile dog-rope into his own muzzle—that is, his own mouth—and clenched it in his own teeth and tugged-of-war with the dog thusly. His lady friend giggled.
The Pet Lady cannot comment further but to say she removed herself to the cold night garden to seek solace in the infallible stars.
You, Pearl, may as well try; this has long been the Pet Lady’s philosophy in love as well as in goldfish, and it has worked out beautifully, if serially. You might send a note to the Pet Lady’s dear friend Dategirl for more detailed and moderne counsel, though there is some sense in considering boys as large pets.
“BTW”? The Pet Lady frowns on such wanton abbreviation, whatever it means. But do bear in mind that the mating ways of fish are as mysterious as those of humans. Your guppies are probably eating their own young. Don’t fret, pussycat.
The Pet Lady
The Pet Lady would love a nice photograph of your pussycat. E-mail thepetlady@seattleweekly.com or use proper postage to: The Pet Lady, c/o Seattle Weekly, 1008 Western, Ste 300, Seattle, WA 98104.
