Peenie Wallie: Here Lays Light Nean

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October 23, 2005

Here Lays Light Nean

In a black and white world, Lightning was born gray. And that one seemingly innocuous peculiarity would eventually cause his grandmother to murder him in cold blood. There would be no charges filed. No investigation. Just a somber Halloween funeral in the shade of the mountain lilac in fall foliage. Lightning was, in the end, just a gerbil, and a dead one at that.

The problem is that we have two litters of gerbils. One litter is all gray and white. The other litter is black, or black and white. But then there was Lightning. He was born in the black and white litter, but he was inexplicably gray, possibly due to some recessive trait that surfaced unexpectedly.

The gerbils are kept in separate habitats, and if mixed, will fight to the death. I know this, and Jennifer knows this. But two of the adult gerbils are solid black, and practically indistinguishable. Plus Lightning always looked like he belonged in the other litter anyway.

Today, when three little girls were playing, they got the gerbils mixed up in a big kind of way. They put the baby gerbil Lighting in the wrong cage, and Snuggles promptly killed it. Sambo got out, and ran away, and no one said a word. (He's still MIA). They put Lola in the wrong cage, thinking she was Sambo, the other black mature gerbil, which had escaped. All of these mistakes would have been easy to make. But somehow, they went further and put Mixie in with Snuggles. Why they did that, I have no clue. Mixie is a mature female with striking black and white and grey coloration. Why they put her in with Snuggles, I'm not clear. But, when the screaming started, I flew down the stairs to find fur flying.

If you ever have the choice between sticking your hand into a Cuisinart set to liquify or a no-holds-barred gerbil-free-for-all between mature female gerbils in a Habitrail, go for the Cuisinart. Trust me on this one.

I managed to get Mixie out, but not before suffering a vicious bite from Snuggles. Then, I figured out that Lola was in the wrong cage and returned her to her home. I still haven't seen Sambo. He's loose in the basement somewhere.

We buried Lightning in an empty toilet paper roll, in the shade of the bird bath and the Mountain Lilac. Jennifer wrote an epitath in pencil on the cardboard roll.

"How do you spell Lightning, daddy?"

"Just do the best you can, baby."