The Condo Dragon
May. 10th, 2020 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chhotiiOnce upon a time there was a kid who wanted a dragon for a pet.
She had seen young dragons in the pet store. After school one day, she had gone to CVS to buy candy, and then walking home she had gone the wrong way on Harvard Street entirely by accident and discovered the pet store. It didn't look like much from the outside: it was pretty much windowless, with the remaining windows covered over with posters. The sign above the door was old and had letters falling off, so it advertised "EVER THING YO NEED FOR YOUR OG - C T - BIR FISH". Inside was faintly dusty and musty, with grimy-looking curling floor tiles, and a jumbled maze of wire-frame pet cages-- some containing various critters and some not-- and a wall of cloudy fish tanks at the back. Between the massive peg board display of cat toys and the bins of dog biscuits was a cage standing alone, lined with old towels and... tin foil?
She peered inside. Curled up together was a litter of tiny baby dragons sleeping. They were beautiful: shiny shimmery green and purple scales with golden edges. In the back there was even one large deep maroon egg that had not hatched yet. As she looked, one little dragon woke up, looked up at her with its huge, deep black eyes, and hissed at her, then yawned and tucked its head back under its bat-like wing. She was charmed.
Back home she spent her entire allotted 20 minutes of computer time (all the Parental Controls would give her until her mother gave her more, which her mother was likely to do if she did her homework (or her mother had work to do, or otherwise just wanted to be left alone)) looking up "how to care for pet dragon". It seemed doable. She couldn't wait for her mother to get home so she could beg her mother to buy one!
Mom came home with a big paper bag of take-out food-- good, because this meant restaurant food, and no waiting; but potentially bad, because this was a sure sign that Mom had a ton of work to do on the computer and wouldn't want to go to the pet store that evening. Over dinner the kid was so excited about the pet dragon idea, she was nearly bursting. "Mom! Mom! Mom! Let's get a pet dragon. They have some at the pet store. They are soooo cute!"
Mom's hand with the chopsticks and the trail of hanging udon noodles stopped mid-air. Mom's body suddenly seemed weirdly stiff somehow.
"A pet... dragon. A pet. A pet dragon...." Mom said, and then stopped, and stared at the kid.
"Pleeease mom? I'll take care of it!"
"Listen, kiddo. A pet is a lot of responsibility. And a dragon? I've never had a dragon. I don't know what's involved. What do you feed a dragon? How big is it going to grow?"
"I read up on it, mom! It's not all that different from having a cat. Not much more work at all."
"And besides, kiddo... the condo association has rules. You can have a cat or a dog or something little and not exotic that stays in a cage forever, that's allowed. But anything weird or exotic, you have to apply for approval from the condo board. I don't think they will approve of a dragon."
They lived in a huge condo complex: a cluster of tall buildings made of grey brick, in the brutalist style from the 1960's. A lot of people who spoke foreign languages were moving in and out all the time. And there were a lot of rules. Mom was always fuming that she had been kicked out of the tennis complex for going onto the tennis court too early, or fretting that they were going to have to move their bicycles out of their parking spot because they didn't have the approved type of fencing for chaining up the bicycles there, or worrying that they were going to get into trouble for having too much clutter on their balcony. The kid didn't care about tennis and thus had never had any trouble with the supposedly strict condo rules. She thought her mom was being paranoid about getting into trouble with the condo association.
"Well, listen, kiddo," Mom finally said. "There's a condo board meeting on Tuesday night. If you really want to do this, let's go to the condo meeting together and we can ask."
On Tuesday evening they went to the function room: a huge, carpeted room with armchairs and bookcases all around, and a bar with barstools (but never actually a bartender or people drinking) in the back. The kiddo had come there many times to play hide-and-seek when they had first moved in, before that got boring. This evening the function room had a huge table in the middle, and rows of hard chairs set out, and people-- stuffy boring-looking old people. The kid and the mom sat in the rows of chairs, not at the table: that was for the board members. The meeting was extremely boring. The stuffy old people went on and on about how much money they had spent on landscaping, and fixing the heating system. On and on and on. Then someone else in the chairs complained at the people at the table about stuff falling on her car. She seemed quite irate and it was almost a fight and yet it still was really boring. The kid was supposed to do her homework during the meeting, but that was boring too. Even her mom was bored, she could tell. The mom looked at her phone the whole time-- first Twitter (letting the kid peek whenever there was a good cat picture) and then the one stupid boring puzzle game she had on the phone. She must've been really bored to resort to that. Why didn't her mother get some decent games on her phone? The kid could not fathom.
Finally it was time for them to talk. The mom shyly rose her hand, and in a nervous squeak, asked "um, how do we go about seeking approval for an exotic pet?"
Old guy at the head of the table folded his hands together, and looked skeptically at them over his glasses. "What type of animal?"
"Umm, we would like to get a dragon."
Old guy at the table snorted and looked at the other people at the table. Everyone at the table looked at each other. They all either looked angry or very, very amused.
Old guy coughed. "I don't think we are going to grant approval for that. Dragons are a fire hazard. We have exceptionally liberal pet policies for a large condo association, we would let you have as many dogs as you want, but dragons, no. I doubt there's a condo anywhere that allows dragons."
The mom and the kid escaped the meeting as fast as possible after that, and went back to their apartment. The kid was sad and mad. The mom said, "I dunno, kiddo. Maybe after my job ends we will move back into the house. At the house there's nobody to tell us that we can't have a dragon. But here it's not allowed."
The kid didn't like the idea of living in the house, in a boring suburb far away from their friends and all the cool stuff. But maybe it would be worth it to have a dragon.
"So, when is your job going to end?"
"I don't know... three years maybe? At least."
------------------------------------------------
The next day the kid went back to the pet store, and looked again at the litter of baby dragons. So cute! So shiny! She asked the pet store owner if she could hold one...
She had seen young dragons in the pet store. After school one day, she had gone to CVS to buy candy, and then walking home she had gone the wrong way on Harvard Street entirely by accident and discovered the pet store. It didn't look like much from the outside: it was pretty much windowless, with the remaining windows covered over with posters. The sign above the door was old and had letters falling off, so it advertised "EVER THING YO NEED FOR YOUR OG - C T - BIR FISH". Inside was faintly dusty and musty, with grimy-looking curling floor tiles, and a jumbled maze of wire-frame pet cages-- some containing various critters and some not-- and a wall of cloudy fish tanks at the back. Between the massive peg board display of cat toys and the bins of dog biscuits was a cage standing alone, lined with old towels and... tin foil?
She peered inside. Curled up together was a litter of tiny baby dragons sleeping. They were beautiful: shiny shimmery green and purple scales with golden edges. In the back there was even one large deep maroon egg that had not hatched yet. As she looked, one little dragon woke up, looked up at her with its huge, deep black eyes, and hissed at her, then yawned and tucked its head back under its bat-like wing. She was charmed.
Back home she spent her entire allotted 20 minutes of computer time (all the Parental Controls would give her until her mother gave her more, which her mother was likely to do if she did her homework (or her mother had work to do, or otherwise just wanted to be left alone)) looking up "how to care for pet dragon". It seemed doable. She couldn't wait for her mother to get home so she could beg her mother to buy one!
Mom came home with a big paper bag of take-out food-- good, because this meant restaurant food, and no waiting; but potentially bad, because this was a sure sign that Mom had a ton of work to do on the computer and wouldn't want to go to the pet store that evening. Over dinner the kid was so excited about the pet dragon idea, she was nearly bursting. "Mom! Mom! Mom! Let's get a pet dragon. They have some at the pet store. They are soooo cute!"
Mom's hand with the chopsticks and the trail of hanging udon noodles stopped mid-air. Mom's body suddenly seemed weirdly stiff somehow.
"A pet... dragon. A pet. A pet dragon...." Mom said, and then stopped, and stared at the kid.
"Pleeease mom? I'll take care of it!"
"Listen, kiddo. A pet is a lot of responsibility. And a dragon? I've never had a dragon. I don't know what's involved. What do you feed a dragon? How big is it going to grow?"
"I read up on it, mom! It's not all that different from having a cat. Not much more work at all."
"And besides, kiddo... the condo association has rules. You can have a cat or a dog or something little and not exotic that stays in a cage forever, that's allowed. But anything weird or exotic, you have to apply for approval from the condo board. I don't think they will approve of a dragon."
They lived in a huge condo complex: a cluster of tall buildings made of grey brick, in the brutalist style from the 1960's. A lot of people who spoke foreign languages were moving in and out all the time. And there were a lot of rules. Mom was always fuming that she had been kicked out of the tennis complex for going onto the tennis court too early, or fretting that they were going to have to move their bicycles out of their parking spot because they didn't have the approved type of fencing for chaining up the bicycles there, or worrying that they were going to get into trouble for having too much clutter on their balcony. The kid didn't care about tennis and thus had never had any trouble with the supposedly strict condo rules. She thought her mom was being paranoid about getting into trouble with the condo association.
"Well, listen, kiddo," Mom finally said. "There's a condo board meeting on Tuesday night. If you really want to do this, let's go to the condo meeting together and we can ask."
On Tuesday evening they went to the function room: a huge, carpeted room with armchairs and bookcases all around, and a bar with barstools (but never actually a bartender or people drinking) in the back. The kiddo had come there many times to play hide-and-seek when they had first moved in, before that got boring. This evening the function room had a huge table in the middle, and rows of hard chairs set out, and people-- stuffy boring-looking old people. The kid and the mom sat in the rows of chairs, not at the table: that was for the board members. The meeting was extremely boring. The stuffy old people went on and on about how much money they had spent on landscaping, and fixing the heating system. On and on and on. Then someone else in the chairs complained at the people at the table about stuff falling on her car. She seemed quite irate and it was almost a fight and yet it still was really boring. The kid was supposed to do her homework during the meeting, but that was boring too. Even her mom was bored, she could tell. The mom looked at her phone the whole time-- first Twitter (letting the kid peek whenever there was a good cat picture) and then the one stupid boring puzzle game she had on the phone. She must've been really bored to resort to that. Why didn't her mother get some decent games on her phone? The kid could not fathom.
Finally it was time for them to talk. The mom shyly rose her hand, and in a nervous squeak, asked "um, how do we go about seeking approval for an exotic pet?"
Old guy at the head of the table folded his hands together, and looked skeptically at them over his glasses. "What type of animal?"
"Umm, we would like to get a dragon."
Old guy at the table snorted and looked at the other people at the table. Everyone at the table looked at each other. They all either looked angry or very, very amused.
Old guy coughed. "I don't think we are going to grant approval for that. Dragons are a fire hazard. We have exceptionally liberal pet policies for a large condo association, we would let you have as many dogs as you want, but dragons, no. I doubt there's a condo anywhere that allows dragons."
The mom and the kid escaped the meeting as fast as possible after that, and went back to their apartment. The kid was sad and mad. The mom said, "I dunno, kiddo. Maybe after my job ends we will move back into the house. At the house there's nobody to tell us that we can't have a dragon. But here it's not allowed."
The kid didn't like the idea of living in the house, in a boring suburb far away from their friends and all the cool stuff. But maybe it would be worth it to have a dragon.
"So, when is your job going to end?"
"I don't know... three years maybe? At least."
------------------------------------------------
The next day the kid went back to the pet store, and looked again at the litter of baby dragons. So cute! So shiny! She asked the pet store owner if she could hold one...
