RIP Jird

Sadly, our animal count has dropped considerably over the past few months. At the rate we are going, we will soon be within the "normal" levels of  pet per family ratio. Of course, normal isn't typically the first word that comes to mind when asked to describe our house.  

Anyway, we said good bye to the jird early this year, and I was very sorry. To be fair, according to the jird's former owner, our niece Brittany, she had already outlived her normal life span before we even took possession. I personally preferred the jird to some of the other animals. She was very low maintenance and didn't smell. Trust me in a house of cat litters, hamster cages and an 11 year old boy who refuses to shower, "didn't smell" was a significant plus. 

She went very quickly, one morning she was whipping around on her wheel, and that evening when she didn't emerge for her treat and the cat wasn't hanging, white knuckled off the side of her cage, I realised something was up. Unfortunately I spoke without thinking (it wouldn't be the first time) and abruptly announced "The jird is dead".  I wasn't prepared for Grady's reaction, which was floods of tears, he was really upset and I felt terrible.  Rob however was positively gleeful, although he did make an, albeit feeble effort to hide his good humour from Grady. 

When Lindsay found out she was elated and instantly shared the news with all her friends. It was pretty much a case of "Ding ! Dong ! the jird is dead". I should point out, that according to the girls, the jird's squeaky wheel was the predominate cause of insomnia when her posse slept over.  Of course, that had absolutely nothing to do with the horror movie marathons, and the constant yackity yack until the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway, I digress. After Grady had gone to bed, we began the talk. "What are we going to do with the jird ? Grady wants to bury it". Rob wasn't keen on that idea, and muttered something about not wasting his time digging a grave in the f***ing frozen tundra for a rat. (This was Canada in February - deep freeze). When I saw the creepy little smile cross his face, I immediately knew he was thinking about the garbage bags sitting at the curb, ready for pick up the next day.  There was no way I was going to allow that, so we compromised on stashing the cadaver in the freezer.

Now it was just a matter of retrieval. Rob wouldn't stick his hand in the cage when the jird was alive, I knew there wasn't a hope in hell he was going to frisk the mounds of bedding to locate the cold dead corpse. That task would certainly fall to me. A case of "My pet. My problem".

The grand plan was to keep the jird stashed safely in the deep freeze, awaiting the spring thaw, at which point we would we can conduct a worthy service. The only problem, we totally forgot. So here we are in October and somewhere in my freezer is a furry little corpse just waiting to be discovered when I least expect it.  Here's to me, living life on the edge !