Life in the Zoo

The little girl who had a little curl is sleeping with plastic bags around her bed. The reason: our house has become the domicile of undomesticated beasts. It happened while I was gone…

The house was silent; the inhabitants resting peacefully. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of baseball bats danced in their heads. And then they heard something which sounded like a woman screaming. It was. My mother, to be exact, who had been rudely awakened by the clattering of a tea cup — landing beside her. From the shelf over her head. Knocked off by a four-foot snake. In the ensuing battle there was unfortunately no carnage; the snake slipped through their fingers (metaphorically speaking—dad was actually using a broom handle and a baseball bat). And somehow the cover on the electrical outlet got busted.

It was enough to make my sister set up a guard across her door and around her bed. Unfortunately, I stepped on it two nights ago, and almost got shot. I would hate to be the snake if he meets up with a shriek like hers…

The coon in the back yard decided to take the opportunity to create a little havoc himself. And the scorpions thought the next day would be a good time to clean up in our bathtub. And then there are all the Yahoos...no. My brothers and sisters may be what they are, but they have not reached the point of Yahoo-ness. Wahoos, perhaps, but not Yahoos.

I voted yesterday in the Republican primary. But first I had to change into my red-and-white striped shirt, so I would coordinate when they gave me the "I voted" sticker with the American flag. I filled out all the lines very neatly straight across, coloring them in to the edges so that they were even, instead of leaving two half-arrows with a too-thin line between. When I was finished, I confessed to my mother what I had done (both about the arrows and about changing clothes) and found out she had done both of those things too. Then we went to the photography studio and straightened pictures in the waiting area.

I was amused when I read on the ballot that if you couldn’t write you should put your mark here. Theoretically, I suppose, you could read and not write, but the two usually go together. When I am dictatrix del mondo (yes, I know I’m mixing my languages, but I can do that when I’m in charge) I think I shall establish some basic requirements for voting, which include literacy. I shall also require voters to pass a proficiency test in history, and a mental competence test, which will consist of the following question: "do you intend to vote for Empress Hannah I?" A negative answer would, of course, prove that the individual was not responsible enough to have a vote.

We slept outside last night, although curl-girl wasn’t sure at first, with all those wild rabbits running around. We told her we’d let the snakes take care of them. And then she was the one pretending to be a snake crawling on me--can you imagine?

The snake spake unto the woman with a voice which strangely resembled that of the middle Backseat Boy.

The Caboose and I have different ideas of camping, incidentally. I wanted to sleep outside without the tent. He wanted to sleep inside with the tent. Sometimes I wonder.

We argued over whether lights were stars or airplanes, or falling airplanes or stars which had just taken off. We talked about snake repellent and falling tsars (not a typo), pretended to be cowboys camping on the Chisolm Trail who were about to be massacred, and (for the comfort of some) pretended to be inside the house pretending to be outside.

I recited The Highwayman with almost all the melodrama in my power. And when I was finished, the first sound was the Caboose: "I don’t get it." sigh. So I tried to explain it in as terribly boring prose as possible. I fell asleep to L telling Dr. Pepper stories…