Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Perils Of Boy Laundry

Curiously, when I arrived to collect Thing One from his friend's birthday party/sleepover this morning, he was out in the front yard collecting salamanders with two of his buddies.  In his pajamas.  Upon closer inspection, I also noted three band-aids on him that had not been there the evening before, plus a thick caking of dirt from one end to the other...he even had some inside his nose and ears.  From the boy standpoint, a very successful party indeed!  The party-hosting friend has a veritable menagerie of pets that includes a snake and several large tarantulas, none of which (thank the Lord) appear to have stowed away in his bag.  I suppose I should be grateful that he only wants to add a salamander to our own menagerie after this experience.



But you can bet that I will be checking his pockets very carefully before I wash the dirty clothes he brought home.  And possibly wearing gloves while I do it!


7 comments:

  1. Oh, I was always the creepy-critter lover of my family. I wanted snakes spiders rodents lizards - all that. Loved em! And my sister did too. But my brothers were definitely NOT interested in such things. One brother wanted a dog (who quickly really became my dog) and the other brother wanted a cat (he got two, they weren't spayed/neutered or taken very good care of, and they became a pack of feral, incestuous cats - it was pretty awful).

    Except for my gerbils always eating their young (and discovering half-eaten carcasses), and the garbage dump rat I got loose in our house (that was pregnant and made an awful rat infestation for years) our creepy critter habit was more successful. but maybe because we were on an island in AK so limited in what we could bring in (I very nearly smuggled a tarantula on an airplane once but I was afraid it wouldn't end well for the spider). I sure did want a tarantula! And my sister and I were usually dirtier than our brothers.

    My point? Watch out for your little one! ;)

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  2. Gee, thanks. :) She's an interesting mix of tough cookie and girly-girl right now...will be interesting to see which half ultimately wins!

    Your rat story reminds me that I have a good hamster story. That may have to be the next post. I'm actually OK with rodents, but I think I will have to draw the parental line at reptiles and large arachnids!! I have enough large freaking spiders in my house already without deliberately introducing more...one unfortunate side effect of country living.

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  3. Oh, but tarantulas are SO COOL! And so are reptiles!!

    No need for one half to win - I know a lot of women who encapsulate tough cookie and girly-girl simultaneously. It looks different in the Pacific Northwest than in the South, but it's still that.

    Maybe I should get in better touch with my girly-girl side ... I guess my time as a domestic goddess was close enough.

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  4. In cages, I agree. But I think I would have a heart attack if I ever encountered a snake or tarantula loose in my house! Where are you in the birth order? The dynamics in this house would suggest that girls with two older brothers have to be tough regardless of how much they also like frills, bows and sparkles!

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  5. Oh god I love snakes! I feel no compulsion to have all these things as a pet now, but man how I wanted them! And even when I was very first in New Orleans gutting houses shortly after Katrina, I encountered so many snakes. I was with a team of hairdressers from San Diego, and one of them one grab the snake each time and toss it out into the yard. After a week of this, we learned they are highly poisonous vipers. Yeah, good times.

    I'm oldest. Definitely. Sort of stereotypical eldest child - neurotic, driven, a little Aspberger's.

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  6. I'm also the eldest, driven and somewhat neurotic! Just sub OCD for the Aspie tendencies in my case. :)

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  7. That spider looks like it has ten legs!

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