A Rodent's Tale

It's been just over a week since our poor gerbil, Ivory (roommate of Ebony), lost half of her tail courtesy of Miss Rose. She doesn't really seem to miss it, but I realized that she'd never had a rodent poem dedicated to her, so if any of you wax poetic, please share.

For those of you just tuning in to this sad little tale, suffice it to say that when a 4yo puts a gerbil in her dress sleeve (after having been played with on the floor and put in dress pockets and who knows what else), said gerbil WILL crawl up the sleeve of said 4yo causing tremendous chaos to break forth and echo throughout the house. In an effort to get the gerbil back out, a 4yo will grab the tail, and in self-defense, the tail will be come off. It's rather gross to look at, too. A handy houseguest can perform rodent surgery, truncating the bony remains (which would have supposedly dried up and fallen off in a few days), and cauterizing to reduce risk of infection. It's all quite emotional, even for M.E., but the next day you will find yourself laughing realizing that it would be dangerous to have a wire spoked wheel in a gerbil cage, because their tails can get caught in them and get ripped off, and we wouldn't want that to happen. hahahaha

So my advice...never leave a 4yo to entertain her 5yo friend, because no matter how good they've been before, eventually "show and tail" will happen.