The ancient city of Babylon had walls so thick, they couldn’t be breached. Ha-ha, the Babylonians could yell down at would-be invaders. No conquest for you!
Alas for the Babylonians, their fortified city had a weakness: The Euphrates River ran under its walls. Spotting this vulnerability, the wily Persian king Cyrus waited until the Babylonians were distracted, diverted the river, and sent his armies marching in through the drained riverbed. Impregnable Babylon fell.
That scenario, give or take two-and-a-half thousand years and minus the armies, is exactly what took place recently in a suburban house not far from here.
It was a dwelling fortified against dog ownership. It was a house whose younger occupants had been made to understand that however nice dogs are — and goodness knows, dogs are nice — there would be no dog of any size, no matter how charming, for the time being or the medium term or whichever is longer.
“We are not getting a dog,” said the parents of this Babylonian household.
Alas, their fortified suburban walls concealed a fatal weakness. It was not the Euphrates River. It was the word “dog.”
That word covers an abundance of animals: long-haired and short-haired, frisky and placid, hounds and terriers and retrievers. What it doesn’t cover — and here’s the riverine weak point — is the multitude of other creatures that any child, if given half a chance, will try to import.
“If we can’t get a dog, can’t we at least get some other pet?” begged a small Persian.
“A gecko?”
“A turtle?”
“Maybe a cute little gerbil? Just one?”
The parents thought about this. It did perhaps seem harsh, in a pet-loving society, to deny entirely to their own children the pleasures and responsibilities of pet ownership.
Anyway, what harm could come of a gecko, a turtle or even a cute little gerbil (just one)? Such a pet wouldn’t need walking, nor would it entail burdensome cleanup.
“Oh, very well. Maybe a gerbil.”
A few days later, a small squad of Persians invaded a Bethesda pet store and fanned out, looking for dear little creatures to adopt.
A few minutes later, the wife phoned her husband at work. “It turns out that gerbils are social, so we can’t get just one.”
“OK.”
“Also, well, rats — they are surprisingly nice,” she said, “and really smart and responsive.”
“You want to buy gerbils and a rat?”
“Not for me, for our son,” she said. “And it’s only fair, if the girls get gerbils, that he have a chance to own a pet, don’t you think?”
He allowed that this was so. She went on: “The thing is, well, rats are social, too. We’ll need several.”
“In other words, we’re going from no pets to a houseful of rodents?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Thus was a suburban Babylon breached! So well buttressed was it against dogs, that, it turns out, it wasn’t secured against anything else.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
