I woke up this morning and went downstairs for breakfast as usual, and who didn't I hear that I normally hear: Louie. His parakeet songsmithing was the normal background music for reading the morning paper while eating breakfast. I go downstairs and what is missing from his cage? Louie. He would always scoot away from me whenever I came downstairs, even though he could only scoot a foot, maybe, because of his cage and always made a racket. It was silent when I went downstairs tonight. How come I miss a bird I could not really say I liked? If I'm missing a bird this much after its death, how hard will it be for me when my dog (she's 13) or my cat (he's 11) dies? I'm going to be balling like a little baby declaring how unfair life is. Hell, if the fish go belly-up I'll be sad. The one thing that truly sucks about having pets is that they die, just like us.