Other people had a dog. Some had a cat.

A dog was better if you wanted to walk it and show it off.

I can’t imagine anyone walking a cat. Cats wouldn’t allow it. I mean, they have their pride. They wouldn’t want anybody to think somebody owned them. I mean, get real! Honestly!

But dogs were made for walking. That’s just what they do. Sometimes they even strut. They like to show off, and be shown off.

Dogs like to be off the leash so they can run around, and they always come back. Sometimes they bring back something they found so they can give it to you. They say, “Here.” They say, “Take this. It’s mine. I give it to you. Pet me.”

There was that famous story about the dog who brought a baby back in its teeth mouth and laid it at its master’s feet. “Here. Take this. Pet me.”

The mother, or more likely the baby-sitter nurse, runs up all distraught and says, “Gimme back my baby!”

You might say, “Slow down there, cool off! Don’t get your diapers in a bunch! My dog didn’t eat very much of your baby, and you can always get another one, I mean, really!”

You don’t see that every day on the street, but sometimes. At least according to the newspaper.

A cat would never bring home a baby!

First, because babies are too big. They’d have to drag it, and cats are lazy.

Second, because cats couldn’t be bothered. Babies are not to their taste.

Dogs are friendly with everybody. Cats are not. Dogs run up to strangers, even if they’re not walking another dog. They sniff and make them nervous, especially men in pants.

Cats now, cats do like to be petted, and purr, but they have claws and let you know it.

Dogs don’t purr. They bark. They also howl. Cats yowl. Even if you can’t see who’s doing it, you always know which one it is.

Dogs are dumber than people.

Cats are smarter than people.

But monkeys, now.

When I was little, I was tired of being overlooked. I wanted a pet that would make people notice me and say, “Really?”

I used all my child wiles, and said, “DaddyMommy!” or “MommyDaddy!,” depending on which, “I want a monkey!”

“No, honeybaby,” or “babyhoney,” depending on which, “Monkeys are dirty and smelly and have fleas you can see in the National Geographic videos and ZoosSnoozeNews…”

“I want a monkey!”

“But what will people say? What will people think?”

I stamped my little foot and that was that. Nobody puts a baby in the corner!

So I had a monkey.

For years.

It grew up faster than me, and everything they said about monkeys was true.

I had a monkey on my back. Literally.

I grew up to be a teenager, where I realized that teenagers don’t have monkeys. Literally.

But I had bragging rights.

“I had a monkey and you didn’t. Nyah Nyah! So there!”

I told them I was almost just like Salvador Dali who used to walk his anteater around the streets of Paris.

Except that I couldn’t afford an anteater.