Bird Brain

Female problems ... A lame excuse for calling into work, but one no smart man would dare to question. It worked like a total charm, although almost everybody was smart enough to put two and two together and to get, well 4. The only thing Stacey was sick of, was working.

I brought home a new addition to my small little family last night. KC has been begging like you wouldn't believe for a rodent - of some small and furry sort - for the longest time and although I have nothing against beady eyes and twitching whiskers, I couldn't bring myself to bring one home.

After all, I am quite knowledgeable in the keeping of long - and short - tailed creatures. Way back in middle school, eighth grade to be exact, I persuaded my Mother to let me have a cute little gray and white mouse, one rescued right from the very jaws of a pet snake owned by the couple I used to baby-sit for. I named her Adisa, and for a while, she lived alone in her little glass cage propped up on a shelf in my room.

Adisa however was lonely, as lonely as only a mouse could be, desperate for companionship. Claiming it was my civil duty to protect yet another mouse from the carnal appetite of a boa constrictor oddly named Harold, I brought Chase home.

Chase was a solid gray mouse with giant ears, dumbo-ish in their exposure, and for all intents and purposes, a girl. Now nothing could have been farther from the truth, but I couldn't tell my Mother that. At least not right away ... Not with the greatest live science experiment known to man was about to go off with nary a hitch.

About this time, I was actually finding the world of science quite interesting, an abnormal departure for me as science and I rarely traveled the same road. (That may have had something to do with my demonstration of a mud slide disaster, which unfortunately had nothing to do with alcoholic beverages, though enough of a disaster that my teacher could have really used a drink ...) Anyhoo, we were learning about the wonders of the hybrid chart. (If memory serves me correctly.) Which basically compares two individuals and the likely outcome of their propagation based on their dominant and recessive qualities AKA their genes. Or in other words, mice heaven.

Well, we all know what happens when you mix boys and girls, sooner or later the lights go off, you pop a tent in the back yard and your daughter comes home 4 months pregnant ... Woops, I mean the mice, well you know what I mean.

Mice had incredibly short gestation periods, so it took some serious work to gather all my data prior to the big live birth. Chart in hand, I scribbled down what I knew based on distinguishing characteristics such as eye color, coat color and whether or not the coat was solid or spotted. Knowledge in hand, I predicted how many of their offspring would follow suit for each trait exhibited by the parent.

Now don't get all excited and think I actually remember if I was wrong or not, because truth be told after getting busted with the little eraser head babies, I was more concerned about getting out of hot water with my Momma than I was with the furthering of my education. Needless to say, with a total of 8 mice later, Mom was not too impressed and this time around, 8 was truly enough. (Does anyone get that joke, or am I just being incredibly lame?)

But I learned a very valuable lesson and one that has aided me right to this very day. When your daughter comes home asking, "Please, Mommy please," don't hesitate to act. Go right to your local pet store and ...

Buy a parakeet.