A Sign of Affection

We have pets. We have a Golden Retriever named, Sunshine, and two cats named Socks and Bucky. Sadly, the latter was named, by my children, in honor of an ill-fated American Idol contestant.

Then there were the gerbils.

At one point we had FIFTEEN gerbils. This sordid fact is due to the pet store employee’s grave error when selling us two “females.” The Birds and the Bees talk at our home was bumped up about five years when these two ladies reproduced.

The morning that J.J. entered the kitchen and said, “The gerbils had babies,” I glanced inside their little Habitrail home and saw the tiniest, pinkest, cutest little rodents. At the time, I knew nothing about breeding gerbils, and so my son and I jumped on the Internet to get educated. My initial question was, “Will the male eat them?” because I did not want to have to explain cannibalism on top of the already looming lesbianism. Of course, I had no idea how to tell which one was the male anyway, but the web page had pictures for that, too.

We learned that the best approach was for both mom and dad to stay and care for their offspring and there was a maturation period of more than a month until the babies were self-sufficient. I made a little mental note of this time frame and started bad mouthing gerbils in general to keep my children from getting too attached.

Wouldn’t you know, before the humane and recommended time period before separation was over, J.J. came into the kitchen again and said, “The gerbils had more babies!” I was now a gerbil farmer.

Steve and I dug up every spare Rubbermaid container, even some larger Tupperware pieces, and began to separate gerbils. Soon, the dining room was covered with them, like a massive gerbil condominium community, some owning the deluxe model home and others in the cheaper basic style. Our cats were in heaven, and I began to strategize our next move.

I started by sending my daughter to a birthday party with a gerbil as a gift. Fortunately, Mia was still too young to understand how strange this was, and I happily declared, “One down!” as she eagerly walked into the birthday girl’s house with her present (yes, we wrapped it).

I then got the ingenious idea to start having gatherings at our home and offering the gerbils as party favors. “Thank you for coming. Please accept this gerbil as a small, living, care-requiring sign of our affection.” Some friends still refuse to speak to us.

In the end, when I was out of ideas and considering starting a class action lawsuit against the pet store (how many other people have been "gender deceived," do you think?), Steve came in like Al Capone and “took care of the situation.” He is not a violent man, but he is in sales, so the pet store manager found himself with plenty of new gerbils to sell that week.

One morning, before the gerbils returned to the motherland, I stood in the dining room feeling rather god-like. I loomed over their cages and watched them go about their gerbil routines (mostly scratching). I began my farm duties for the day, filling food bowls, refilling water dishes and cleaning out cages. Every time I opened a cage, the gerbil would dart away in fear, unable to understand that what I was doing was a sign of my affection and care. I was too big. I was too powerful. The gerbils just didn’t understand.

I kept on with my chores, but began to talk to God. I thanked Him for His care. I thanked Him for His persistence. I thanked Him for farming His creation. I thanked Him for becoming small, like me, so that I no longer needed to dart away in fear. I thanked Him for sending a living sign of His affection. I thanked Him for Jesus.