Beep! Feed Me! Play With Me! Beware: Giga Pets Crave Most Of Your Attention

At last, I figured out how to turn off the sound.

My daughter’s electronic cat has been driving me, and my exceedingly tactful office mates, crazy. It beeps endlessly.

This tiny neon-gold colored plastic computer, called a Giga Pet, started bleating from my purse this morning before I left for work. The size of a lime, it hangs from a silver keychain. It’s an American knockoff of the Japanese Tamagotchi, the original digital pet which set off a worldwide trend.

Since Tamagotchis were introduced in the United States last spring, virtual pets have sold in this country at the rate of 1 million per month. Their biggest fans are girls ages 9 to 13. Toy experts say boys quickly tire of the responsibility and can’t wait to kill the pets off. But adolescent girls adore them.

Hearing her pet crying from inside my purse this morning, my 12-year-old daughter, Megan, fished out her kitty, Beeper, and scolded me. “Mom, she pooped two times,” she said. “You have to clean it up. You can’t just leave her there in your purse.”

Now why does this digital pet, with the face of a wide-eyed kitten, have the ability to make me feel like a neglectful mother? Someone about to be turned into Child Protective Services, or maybe some sort of cyber branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?

I faced a day with Megan’s Compu Kitty with even more trepidation than I felt those early days with my first baby. I’d cared for infants before and never lost a single one.

But this thing. We kill off so many virtual kittens at our house that we’ve practically worn out the reset button. Megan’s always waking up in the morning to find another cat has sprouted angel wings and is flapping into the digital netherworld.

I brought Beeper, the latest kitty incarnation, to work with me today, to help me explore the complexities of our family’s curious relationship with a computerized creature. But I’ve been so side-tracked, what with the baths and the playtimes and the trips to the vet, that I’ve barely written a word. This is amazingly like becoming a mother for the first time.

Beeper is 1 year old, which translates to about a day in Giga Pet time, and 11 pounds. She’s actually doing fairly well, something I can assess from a series of scores that I can pull up on the screen.

At this very moment, she has an overall score of 88, out of 100, which is not bad.

Oops, the flashing question and exclamation marks just warned me. She pooped again. Excuse me while I push a button for a magic scooper, and tap it again to give her a quick bath. You leave these kitties in a mess for long, and their health scores plummet. When that happens, we’re soon talking angel wings.

Now, where was I? This is exactly like being a working mother. You start into a chore, at home or at work, get distracted by your child’s needs, then struggle to regain focus. You wind up maintaining a career with one hand tied behind your back.

And like children that can’t be ignored, or even a houseplant likely to shrivel and fade, this Giga Pet requires regular attention.

She seems to do best with plenty of play time. By pushing the right buttons I can command her to perform tricks: stalk, walk, jump or meow. If she does the right one, I reward her with a bony, fish-shaped treat. If she forgets, I can hit the discipline button: time-out for kitties.

I can also punch the right buttons to feed her - a bowl of catfood pops onto the screen - or turn the lights out for naptime. The screen releases a series of zzzz’s. As with real children, naptime is one of my favorites.

I can send the cat to a stethoscope-wearing vet, or launch a butterfly over her nose to play catch over and over. She loves that game. As I play, I notice the vague twinges of a familiar maternal sensation.

One night I made the mistake of leaving the computer kitty on my bedside table. She’d seemed neglected after Megan went to bed.

In the middle of the night, she meowed several times, waking me from a sound sleep. I’d forgotten to ask Megan how to turn off the sound. Instead, like a bleary-eyed new mother, I stumbled around in the dark and tried various tricks - food, playtime, a quick clean-up - until I’d settled her down once again. The next day I suffered with the same feelings of sleep deprivation I remember so well from our daughters’ baby days.

They were adorable then. I was exhausted.

Oops. The kitty’s hungry. Time for another feeding.

Why do we put ourselves through this? Why do we have real pets and children with real needs? And now, why of all things, this goofy computerized cat?

In the case of the Giga Pet, certainly most of the answer has to do with crass commercialism, clever marketing and the $9.99 special at Fred Meyer. And maybe, for these eerily vulnerable little fake creatures, there’s something more.

Maybe it’s what kept me up the other night. Maybe for women, anyway, the lure of these lopsided relationships is simply innate. Dependency elicits nurturing, even in spite of ourselves.

The maternal instinct may be stronger than we realize. It must be if, even for an instant, we can fall for the phony, plastic models like ol’ Beeper here. She certainly won’t be worth the effort.

But real babies inevitably are.

Nothing compels - or sells - like primal connection.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo