The Truth About Scurry

 

It began as an innocent reminiscing during a wonderful campfire at our hideaway in the great Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

After a few warming beverages, my husband and I looked across the flames toward my oldest son, just turned thirteen. You know the age… attitude dipped in hormones and covered in acne. Admiring the well-adjusted boy he was, and as all good parents often do just for fun in the deep woods of the great north, we decided to rock his little world and tell him one of our families’ deepest, darkest, and most horrid secrets.  We revealed to our son the truth about Scurry the Hamster.

Now Scurry was my son’s first pet. This pet was your average hamster and had actually passed into hamster heaven about four years prior to the campfire. The conversation went a bit like this:

Steve: “Son, your mother and I have decided that it is time for you to know the truth about your hamster Scurry” (I proceed to crack up….)

Sam: “What truth Pa?” (My son does not actually refer to my husband as “Pa” but it works better in this story).

Steve: “The truth son, is, …..well, the truth is that your beloved hamster buried back home in the backyard is not really, truly, Scurry.”

Sam: “Pa, this is not some weird Pet Semetary story is it? Don’t freak me out in the woods up here.”

Steve: “No, son, Scurry is not of the undead. It is just that the Scurry buried there, is not actually the original Scurry number one.”

Sam: “What?!” (Now, I am laughing so hard, I head to the outhouse)

Steve: “Son, let me tell you about a boy, a young boy, say you, having a fourth birthday. All you asked for was a tiny, disgusting, little rodent for your special day. Your mother insisted for some reason that it was imperative for your little dream to come true (yes, this is all really your mother’s fault in the end, just a cliff note). So I bought you the cutest, littlest hamster one could buy at the pet shop and fulfilled your wildest dream. You were ecstatic! You loved that disgusting thing and named it Scurry. I have never seen you so happy since son. It was a magical day. Now, let’s just admit here in the light of this campfire, that the night was not so magical for Scurry One. He croaked sometime after Jay Leno and before Conan O’Brian (this was before he moved to TBS, another tragic story I will share another time) and your mother began a supreme freak out.  I was able to calm her down and we devised a diabolical plan. We told you in the morning that Scurry had been so happy to meet you that he had fell asleep exhausted and would be just fine when you arrived home from pre-school. “

Sam: “Scurry….was…..dead??? What? You lied to a preschooler?”

Steve: “Yes, son, quite easily. I then missed a day of work and headed off to purchase Scurry Number Two.”

Sam: “So that was how he got so much bigger that day!”

Steve: “Yes, son, I bought a much older and stronger hamster that would be able to sustain life for more than three hours.”

Sam: “So, I have Scurry Number Two buried at home Pa?”

Steve: “Well, don’t get ahead of yourself son. Scurry Two did live eight long and glorious months before the escape.”

Sam: “What??? I remember him getting out, but he didn’t die!”

Steve: “Well, actually he did. Apparently while gallivanting around in the basement for the three days that  we were looking for him…he feasted on a bit of D-con, the end was quite brutal….thank goodness you were at school.”

Sam: *Gasp*

Steve: “We told you he was so tired from running around the house, that he was exhausted and sleeping. So I once again missed a day at work for a six-dollar rodent and brought home Scurry Number Three”

Sam: “So Scurry Three lived three more years and is buried in the back yard Pa?”

Steve: “Now, you keep gittin (My husband does not often say ‘Gitin” but again, works best for the story.) ahead of yourself son…Scurry Three did live the longest out of all of ‘em”

Sam: “All of them???? For the love of Pete Dad!”

Steve: “Well, Scurry Three was actually murdered by your sweet mother. After escaping for that week back in ’02, she found him nested in her brand new carpeting. A hole clear down to the sub floor….a five hundred dollar repair…had no idea your mother could punt kick that far……very impressive.”

Sam: “So, Dad….what number Scurry was actually buried during the funeral of 2003? The one that I still need therapy over? And Mom is a hamster killer??

Mom: “I prefer rodent eliminator son.” (This was another lie, I never killed that hamster…..he just died…..so I say(insert evil laughter))

My husband took a moment to try and count on his fingers….I was laughing so hard I could not breathe.

Steve “Let’s just say….it is five or six times a whole lot a love son…..a whole lot of hamster love…”

We plan on starting that therapy for the kid next week. Mission accomplished.

Field Trip Duty

The following story is 100% true. Well, maybe 98% true. It happened years ago, but I am just now able to write about it….I apologize in advance.

It was my turn to chaperone the first grade field trip to the community pools.

My husband and I usually  arm wrestle, blackmail,  or Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who has to go (uh, I mean, we are vying for who is lucky enough to attend), but since the man was still experiencing post traumatic stress syndrome from his recent field trip with a hundred fifth graders traipsing all over Mackinaw Island, (the highlight of which was a slightly off-meds young man that decided to throw his bicycle into Lake Huron on the far side of the island), we both knew that it would be I, accompanying my youngest son along with three of the first grade classrooms from the North Ohio Elementary School to the community pools.

The trip began with my son begging me to pretend that I was someone else’s mother so that I did not embarrass him while we sat on the bus to the Sportsplex. Apparently I have been known to humiliate my children in public by doing horrific things to them, like kissing them good-bye or holding their hand, in the presence of their friends. The teacher asked that I sit with the other naughty kids up front while she sat with my son in the back of the bus… I guess that was a colossal hint, the OTHER naughty kids.  I spent fifteen minutes being peppered with questions by a six- year-old hoodlum who wanted to know my address and asked me repeatedly if I knew how to set things on fire like he does. In order to quiet the lovely child, I gave him the address of a business we were driving past. Three weeks later there was a serious arson at the location….coincidence? I think not.

After arriving, the kids grabbed their Wal-Mart bags stuffed with bathing suites and towels their parents could only hope to see again and headed to the locker rooms. It was my job to help the girls change into their swim suits and escort them to the poolside. Forty-seven of them lined up to change in the one and only bathroom stall. I tried to comfort them by announcing that we were all girls so that it was okay to change into our suits in front of each other. As I proceeded to undress, a little girl next to me began to cry, others pointed and laughed. I grabbed my Wal-Mart bag and got in line. Twenty-five minutes later we were all ready to go. I tried to skip out on the cold shower, but was busted by a tiny tot hollering at me, “you’re gonna get germs in the pool grandma!” I proceeded to communicate to her that I was not yet a grandma as I cranked up the cold water over my body and her little head.

I arrived on the deck of the pool to find my son being given a “talking to” for running around by a crabby-looking lifeguard. Apparently it must not be enjoyable to guard eighty-eight post-kindergartners and the clueless parents that accompany them. My son’s teacher also noticed the tongue lashing and gave me that look. You know, the look that says, “that kid will either be president or in prison someday”. Teachers are so optimistic for our children, we parents know better.

So thus, as there are two pools in our natatorium, the cold pool and the warm pool, I was given my assignment…yes, you guessed it, the cold pool.

We were in the pools for exactly three minutes and twenty-two seconds when an evacuation erupted from the warm pool not unlike the beach scene from the first ‘Jaws’ movie. For a moment, I scanned the area for that infamous dorsal fin. But alas, the truth behind the evacuation was worse than the presence of a man-eating, carnivorous, and  blood-thirsty fish. The lifeguard standing on the edge of the pool answered my quizzical look by whispering loudly…… “fecal matter”. The terror.

I immediately scanned the peripheral of my personal space and to my pure unadulterated revulsion saw what resembled Bill Murray’s Baby Ruth bar in the movie ‘Caddyshack’ located about twenty-four inches from my big toe. I yelled for the lifeguard and pointed. She grew ghastly and instantaneously pale, grabbed her mega-phone and yelled, “PLEASE EXIT THE LARGE POOL!”  People again exploded out of the cold pool. My doctor’s husband, who was also chaperoning, resembled Jesus crossing the lake as he bolted out of the deep end. I however, was trapped. The ‘matter’ blocked my exit to the steps, and dozens of children were spilling out over the edges blocking my only withdrawal over the side. What resulted was that I was the last person to escape and hit the soapy shower. The children, who had spent all of six minutes total swimming on their field trip, were crying. Some kids, who were suspiciously not crying, were busily trying to discover the culprit. Which classmate was it? Who was able to accomplish the amazing feat of pooping in two pools in less than six minutes? The world may never know.

 After soaping and disinfecting us all for thirty more minutes, we begged the bus driver to divert for ice cream to try and calm the weeping. Although clearly traumatized, the children and the parents felt a little better after the treat, but not much better. Few slept well that night. The teacher was slapped with a three hundred dollar fine, and retired shortly after the field trip.

I took my son home early that day. Of course I had to ask the question…..”Son, please tell mama that you were not the mad pool pooper today”

My answer, “Geesh mom, no way! Please tell me it wasn’t you, because that would be so embarrassing!”

The kids are going to the farm in a few weeks; I plan on contracting the chicken pox.