I am writing a book about slackers, and want to include a chapter on the best pets for slackers. My basic premise is that the harder it is to distingish the pet from a dead animal or an inanimate object, the better a pet it would make for a slacker. I’ve already thought of pet rocks and Chia Pets, thank you. Other than them, I’m pretty sure there are some small lizards that would fit the bill.
Can anyone help me with some more specific suggestions?
Also – worst pets for slackers? I’m thinking dogs would be worst, because of all the walking and wanting to play, but again, if you can some really really high-maintenance pets, that would be great!
I always thought an ant farm would be fairly low maintenance. I guess you have to feed them, but if you don’t and they all die, does anyone really care?
Not actually dead animals – I’m looking for animals that seem dead, unless you watch them for a long time. IOW, a pet analog of a serious slacker.
Turtles are a good thought.
Sloths seem good in theory – are there really small ones? I know I didn’t specify size, but well… Do they crap much? (BTW, I can appreciate if you’re not a sloth expert, let alone a sloth crap expert.)
…not sure I can back this up, but I remember seeing a special about sloths that demonstrated that they will wait until it rains to evacuate. The handlers would spray them with a hose to simulate rain in captivity.
I’ll thank you now for playing our game. I never really gave any thought to plants, which all seem pretty equally low maintenance. But if I’m gonna suggest seomthing already dead, I may as well go with some cheap molded platic thing.
The problem with any of the marine options is that even though the animals fit the bill, there’s a lot of fiddlyness in terms of water quality, pH, etc that has to be dealt with.
For land animals, cockroaches? Maybe a 17-year cicada larva?
I had no idea ‘slacker’ was still in use – I thought it died back in the nineties or so. I guess I’m too lazy to look it up. Pardon me while I go check out my SeaMonkeys.
You’re welcome. And I think you’re right about the plastic plants. They’re perfect for slackers. Plastic fruit would also be good. Since a slacker is not gonna eat fruit anyway, it saves all the trouble of going to the store and then throwing it into the crisper to let it rot.
Get some mud and put a clam in it. It will be perfectly happy.
Koalas seem rather dead–the ones at our zoo don’t move much and if you ask me the zoo director just got a few teddy bears and stuck them in the Eucalyptus trees.
Also - when I visited an animal park that had a sloth in an area where people could get pretty close, they specifically prevented people from getting close to the sloth. Seems the critters might not be moving much, but if your head got within reach, they might make a quick swipe at it, gouging a couple of furrows in your scalp. Not good pet material!
