C is for cookie.

I'm eating cookies right now if you weren't able to guess from today's title. Key lime white chocolate. They're gooooooooood. We have two guinea pigs and they're crazy. Whenever they hear the crinkle of plastic, they go nuts because they think they're going to get some timorthy hay. I don't know if you know what a happy guinea pig looks like, but they jump around and squeal a lot. Sometimes I'll crunch up a plastic bag after I put away groceries just to watch them go ballistic. It's funny, really, it's funny. It's a prime example of classic pavlovian conditioning. My daughter is turning out to be a bit of a scientist herself, but more along the lines of Frankenstein than Pavlov. She likes to do things that essentially torture the animals to see what their responses will be. For example, she'll shine a bright light directly in the eyes of her gerbil just to see what happens. Before any of you whacked out animal rights people get your panties in a bunch, we do stop her when we see what she's up to. She'll also brush the guinea pigs against the grain of their fur because it makes them squeal like Ned Beatty. They don't like it, but she thinks they're shouting their joy. Yeah, I still haven't seen anything that convinces me children and animals are a good mix.

She wants a cat now. I've told her she can't have a cat until the gerbil and hamster die. If you're keeping track, you'll have figured out we have two guinea pigs, a gerbil and a hamster as pets. When I told her the smaller rodents had to die before I'd even consider getting another animal, she suggested we set Bertha (the gerbil) "free" in the back yard. We told her that wouldn't work. Her real dream is to get onto Pet Stars, which is an animal talent show on Animal Planet. At first she tried to teach her hamster Snoozer to do somersaults. Training sessions consisted of her yelling jump and then tossing Snoozer from hand to hand. We had to let her know hamsters don't catch on that easily, so she decided she'd turn to the guinea pigs. She thinks their happy dance is enough to win her a prize. But now she dreams of the day when she'll get a cat and can torture, er, train it. Going to a pet store with her is interesting because she spends all her time trying to figure out which cat condo she wants to buy when we finally get around to getting a cat. I think I know what she really wants and I'm buying her the deluxe kitty highrise for Christmas.