Making My List

Let me tell you what I don’t want for Christmas. Please. First, I don’t want a genetically engineered kitten. I know that it’s possible to put down a $250 deposit for a hypoallergenic cat, but save your money. Gene-silencing is creepy, far more off-putting than the $3500 price tag the final furry products carry. If somebody figures out how to make a hypoallergenic cat, who’s to say that somebody else won’t figure out how to silence my own, albeit sneeze-begotten, gene pool?

Second, I don’t want a GloFish. As much as I like fish, I don’t want one that has been genetically modified to include the fluorescence of a sea anemone or piece of coral. At only $5.00, this fish might seem like a real bargain. You might even think I’d like it because its genetic base is the zebra fish, my favorite fish when I was twelve years old. Don’t trust sentimentality to prevail. When I look at a GloFish, all I can think of is how far this little creature has come since somebody took one from the Ganges and commercialized it.

Third, I don’t want anybody to rush out and pay $50,000 to clone Billy, my fluffy cat. Although some may have heard me express regret that Bill never got to reproduce, given how gentle and fluffy he is, not to mention gorgeous, I really can live without another cat that looks just like him. Although it would be tempting to do a case study of nature versus nurture, given a cat prepared in a Petri dish versus a wild barn cat that got half eaten by a dog before it came to live with me, I can live without empirical evidence that nurture creates a thankful disposition in a domesticated wild animal. So can Billy.

Fourth, as much as I wax sentimental about hamsters, don’t even think of forking over twenty bucks for a hairless hamster. While I know that these genetic mutations can occur naturally, I also know how breeders increase the chances that a mutation will occur so they can sell a freak of nature for more money than its furry cousin. A hairless hamster may be just as appealing as a hypoallergenic cat to people with allergies, people like me, but why put hamsters through unnecessary misery and mess up the hamster gene pool while you’re at it?

If you’re beginning to think I’d be ungrateful if you put your money into a designer pet, you’re right. Still, forget the gift certificate for cryopreservation. It’s not because I don’t think about Billy’s mortality. I do. It’s because, fifth, I can have a happier holiday not thinking that one day Billy’s body will be preserved in a deep freeze in Arizona until somebody figures out how to bring it back to life. What would Billy do without me, anyway, if he woke up in three thousand years? You’d have to spring for another $150,000, on top of the $6,000 for my cat, to preserve me too.

Killjoy that I am, what is left for that shopping list this Christmas? An orphan kitten, one of those endearing fluffmuffins you find through the Animal Defense League, is a possibility. But please don’t just show up at my door with one. Before I could adopt a kitten I could live with for the next twenty years, I would have to hug quite a few to find the one to which I was least allergic. Convincing Billy that he needed a friend could take a little longer. As for my husband, he’s hoping I’ll settle for a betta.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 24 November 2004, p. A6. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2004.