Today I would like to tell a story about two things that aren’t typically combined in the same sentence: pets and sex toys. If you’re faint of heart or are already thinking “Geez, too much information,” you should probably just go click one of those links to the right and read something else. I won’t tell.

So, last spring I moved from Seattle to Olympia (a move I’m preparing to reverse in the next week or so, if all goes according to plan). I was living by myself for the first time since 1994, having left both the boyfriend and the pet rats in Seattle. In a desperate attempt to have SOMETHING to open the door and shout “Honey, I’m home” to, I decided I would get a pet. I saw a sign at the co-op where I volunteered for a free chinchilla and thought it was a fortuitious.

Chinchillas, for those of you who don’t know, are basically high Andean marmets. They’re these sort of rodent-slash-squirrel-slash-rabbit animals that are incredibly cute and were almost trapped to extinction for their fur, which is so soft you almost can’t feel it under your fingers.

They’re also like gremlins. Evil. They chew everything. Now, I’ve had rodents and rabbits and all sorts of chewing pets before, but NOTHING like a chinchilla. Photos, electrical cords, plants, shoes, belts, everything was teething material, and Fidel (the communist chinchilla–he came with that name) was never done teething. He *was* awfully cute–he literally ran up the walls when he was dodging around the apartment, which is adorable unless you’re trying to catch him to put him back in his cage for the night, which it felt like I was always doing. And don’t even get me started on the one time he slipped outside. Fidel was a bit infuriating.

Anyway, as an independent and warm-blooded woman who was living alone, I also had a few, eh, accessories. Nothing frightening or anything I feel like discussing any more than I am in this post, but just a couple basics. Items to keep a girl warm on a cold night.

You can see where this story is headed, naturally. Fidel the chinchilla liked to get into my closet and bureau, and the next thing I know…he had nibbled a dildo.

I don’t know WHY he chose to nibble it. Was it the shape? Was it the high quality silicon the thing was made of? (It WAS from Toys in Babeland so it WAS quality, you know.) Was Fidel the chinchilla gay? We’ll never know. All we know is that he didn’t just nibble it, he had to chew the very tip. The most important part, and suddenly it looked like a chocolate that someone had pulled from the box, sampled, and decided against. The latex showed the indented marks of Fidel’s rodent-y incisors. That’s not sexy. It was no long a toy I wanted anywhere near any delicate parts of myself.

I mourned. A woman grows attached to her friends, especially when her boyfriend is 60 miles north via the black ribbon of death we call I-5. It was really sad, but I refused to throw the dil away. I wrapped it in tissue, put it in a coffin-like shoe-box, and stored it in my dresser. I would have had a funeral, but the dildo had told me once that it didn’t appreciate such things, and I wanted to respect its wishes. We were close like that.

Then I got rid of Fidel. He was a cute pet, but after he destroyed one of my closest friends, it was clear that Fidel and my time was over. Around Christmas of last year I sold him to a very nice man from the Eastside for the cost of his cage. I’m quite sure this man does not own a dildo, so I figured he would have a better time with Fidel than I did. It was a sad goodbye, but not nearly as sad as the dismal thought of my retired friend, resting dormant in its shoe-box.

A few months ago, I stopped in at Babeland to see what was new. It’s a fantastic store, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for those of you of either gender in Seattle or New York. Based on the “woman-friendly, sex-positive” model that San Francisco’s Good Vibrations established, walking into Babeland feels more like walking into a good independent book store than a sex shop. There are no greasy-haired men behind the counters. There are no “back rooms” with sparkly pink crotchless maids’ costumes or vagina lollipops. You won’t find any fuzzy purple handcuffs. Just well-lit wooden shelves of quality books, vids, and supplies for happy healthy sexy people. You’re as likely to run into an mid-50s lesbian couple mumbling over a hitachi magic wand as you are to see a pierced guy in his 20s looking at the “Bend Over Boyfriend” instructional video series.

And the women who work at Babeland are fantastic. Very good natured, helpful, chatty, and well-informed. You can watch them feel out each customer’s comfort level–is this their first time in a sex shop? Do they need someone to hold their hand and explain the difference between a battery-powered or plug-in vibrator? Or is this the experienced customer who knows exactly what they want, and it’s happens to be an enormous studded butt plug, but not in latex it HAS to be silicon and they need it to be in purple or else it’s just not right? The women who work at this store can read customers like nobody’s bizness, and they’re very helpful.

I assumed it was a lost cause, but I figured I’d ask if they could think of any way that I could resurrect my friend, the chewed toy. After initially laughing heartily (and apologizing afterward for because they didn’t mean to “laugh at your pain,”), the girls got to thinking. Surely there had to be a way it could be fixed (this is also what I like about the store: they didn’t immediately insist that I needed to BUY something). You couldn’t really MELT the tip to get rid of the bite marks, because that would compromise the silicon that it was made of, potentially destroying the whole thing.

“Wait,” one woman thought out-loud. “Couldn’t you sort of shave it back into shape? Like, with a filet knife?” Why, by jove, I think she’s got it! We chatted (and laughed uncontrollably) about the details–it would need to be a smooth knife, definitely not serrated, and there would be a little girth lost. But it was the tip, so maybe that was ok. My friend would need to be thoroughly washed afterward, and I’d need to be careful not to leave any rough edges. But given all that–we seemed to have a plan!

I rushed home, pulled the dil out of its coffin, and got to work. Why, I felt like a circumcision doctor, toiling away over my faux phallus, shaping it and shaving off the bits that stuck out strangely. It must be stated here that I’m not into circumcision as a concept or a practice, just FYI. Anyway, after about 15 minutes of knifework, my job was done.

And my friend was back in action. Granted, a little svelter at the tip, a little rougher around the edges, but that’s just fine. Like any lover, it’s got some rough times in its history, and that just makes me appreciate it all the more.