The End of Sally

Some things never change. When I was in elementary school (and junior high and high school), people didn’t remember me. I would see people time and time again, and they would introduce themselves to me each and every time. The exception was if they saw my mom. People remembered her, and I was fortunate enough that they remembered that I went with her. Seeing as I was not memorable, I could not possibly be cool. People never used “cool” when talking about me. They might say, “Oh, that’s the girl with the cool brother Dan, right?” or, “Oh! Your mom is so cool!” but they didn’t use cool if they specifically meant me.
When I had Millie, people remembered me and thought I was cool! “A tarantula? She actually has a tarantula? Cool!” kids said on the playground. “A tarantula? She really holds a tarantula? Cool!” kids in the neighborhood would ask. Millie turned out to be a really great pet for a third grade girl.
A fifth grade girl, though, desires a pet won through a class drawing. In science, we had salamanders, and for some reason, my mom signed the permission slip that was drawn from the hat.
Sally was a really great pet. She was adorable, and ate the same little crickets that we bought for Millie. My favorite thing to do was have her crawl from my hand to the fuzzy quilt my brothers, sister, and I used to ride down the stairs. Her tiny little toes gripped my finger like a toothbrush tickling tiles on a floor. She’d get stuck in the fuzz and I’d have to un-twine her little toes. Like Millie, she shed, but unlike Millie, it was constant enough that it didn’t look like a second Sally.
The reputation that accompanied Sally was a little bit different than Millie’s. My second-grade sister and her friends adored Sally (Beck took Sally for show-and-tell shortly before Sally passed away), and to them, I was cool since I had a salamander.
What did I learn? Have a creepy spider and boys will think you’re cool. Have an adorable salamander, and second grade girls will think you’re cool. 
Show my parents I’m responsible and they will let me have a pet. Open a cheque box found in the freezer in summer... Greg, Dan, Becky and I will not find Christmas toffee tucked away, but we will find a “Sally-cicle” Mom forgot she had tucked away for trash day!


And some things never change.