This Reminds Me

I live by a long-standing rule which I espouse with fervor:

I DO NOT DO MAINTENANCE ITEMS THAT DON’T CALL ME “MOMMY.”

I don’t do indoor plants.

I don’t do yard work.

And I certainly don’t do animals.

I don’t even like animals.  I really don’t.  Unless they’re sauteed with some butter and a little garlic.

I spotted an animal here last night, though, scurrying behind Keith’s chair as I related the surprising news that Rachel and Lois had pierced their own ears’ cartilage.  I thought it was a mouse.  Keith suspected the truth and summoned Rachel to our bedroom to explain, and catch the rodent.  We heard a rambling, disjointed story about how she was keeping this dwarf hamster overnight for a friend and somehow it got out blah blah blah blah, nose growing by the moment.

Over the course of 24 hours, the bizarre truth has emerged.

A friend of Rachel’s gave her two male dwarf hamsters three weeks ago. She and Lois had been keeping them in shoeboxes in their rooms.  The first Sunday they had them, they took them to church – in their purses – and showed them off to their Sunday School classes (sworn to secrecy.)  Rachel assured me they were “really careful” while they played with them in the sanctuary, during worship.

If I had known that – they would have met Jesus in person as soon as I could have snatched them up by their carefully-straightened hair.

They moved the shoe boxes around to wherever they thought I wouldn’t be, including depositing them in the attic one weekday when I was home all day.  It’s a wonder the hamsters didn’t cook.  (And together, they wouldn’t make one good bite.)

On the way home from Costco, I was thinking of where we could turn them out.  There are still a few empty lots around.  But as I walked in the house, Julia ran to greet me, breathless with excitement, chattering a mile a minute and clutching little “Beast.”

They played the Julia card.

(sigh)

I guess we have two dwarf hamsters now.

And still four girls that call me “Mommy.”

Hannah holding Abba; Julia holding Beast – named, as Rachel says, for his “fearsomeness.”

Comments are closed.