Tuesday, September 26, 2006

soothing wallabies

So, when I feel all anxious about quitting smoking, I look at the picture of the wallaby on my desktop. It's soothing. But it makes me think too much about wallabies.

wallaby
Soothing wallaby

I've been sharing wallaby facts with my colleagues.

1. Wallabies can make excellent pets, but they must be bottle fed from babies (joeys) to establish a really close bond.
2. Wallabies can be house trained - i.e. trained to poo outside, but you can never quite train them not to knock things over with their fat marsupial tail.
3. Wallabies like water. If you have a house wallaby, and you're in the bath, sometimes they'll jump in with you.
4. Wallabies, particularly male wallabies, like to box. It's cute when they're young, but not so cute when they get big. (Particularly for Bennett's wallabies that seem to be hardiest as kept pets).
5. Wallabies are nervous creatures - you must protect them from getting scared.

I don't think all my colleagues appreciate learning about wallabies. One said "You certainly have done your research. Did you happen to find any recipes for wallabies?"

I can see her strategy here. To freak me out. But it won't work. I lived too long in rural Tennessee. I've eaten Bambi.

"I bet wallabies would make good eating," I say. "They're herbivores, kind of like deer. Plus they breed pretty quick, and it only takes 1 male to service 10 females. You could eat the surplus wallabies."

But the truth is, I couldn't butcher my own pet wallaby. Even one that wasn't being a very good pet. Plus, you can sell a live male wallaby in the US for around $800, which would make eating him a pretty expensive bbq.

4 comments:

St. Caffeine said...

You know, Vol, sometimes when you're going on and on about UT football I think, "Vol needs another hobby." I knew it spelled trouble, though, when you combined your wallaby interest with your UT obsession. I guess you just don't take a half-hearted interest in anything, huh?

Regardless, I like the wallaby hobby as I do find them adorable creatures. I think you need one. I bet you could even train him (or her) to fetch things from the fridge. How cool would that be?

Vol Abroad said...

Despite what other websites say about wallabies in the house, I think the closest they should get is the porch.

Anonymous said...

Hmm... beware Vol. The wallabies are cute, but I think you're playing right into the hands of pissed off Australians. Have you heard about the holy hell European rabbits have wreaked down there?

Considering their similar breeding and eating habits, it sounds like payback time to me.

Anonymous said...

Wallabies are certainly one of kind pets, not only because of their fluffy, cute and cuddly features, but they are super quiet! Marsupials do not have vocal chords so there is no meow, bark or hiss to bother your lifestyle.
For more on marsupial vocal chords click here.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/.../pdf/janatphys00083-0038.pdf

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