Dad here: welcome to my world. Charlie and I are currently hiding out in the Cave Canem in a desperate attempt at maintaining some sanity. You see, the Casa has been invaded be a barbarian horde of vicious, noisy, furry little creatures. Wait just a minute; Titus has also just showed up in search of refuge, and I expect that Claire and Stubb will be following shortly.
What about Mom and her dogs, you ask? Why would they not be seeking safe haven as well? Well, on this one she is on her own, as it is entirely her fault that we are experiencing this infestation.
Remember the four quail that she snuck home from the farmer’s market? Well, two of them ended up crossing the rainbirdy bridge due to unknown causes, so I thought that that that would be of end of the beginning of QuailsRUs.com.
But Mom was convinced that a male and female had survived, so in an effort to encourage their procreation, she fed them candlelight dinners accompanied by Luther Vandross recordings to set the mood. After a few weeks of this prompting, Mom decided that Caitlyn was after all a Bruce, and this just wasn’t going to work out between them; a “it’s not you, it’s all me” type of thing.
Again, this should have been a sign that she is not predestined to be a quail rancher. But her next trip the the swap meet also included a stop at the Asian Food Mart, and in addition to smuggling additional quail across the border, she also brought home a couple dozen eggs.
Quail eggs. And an INCUBATOR.
So, my kitchen soon resembled a scene from the movie “Aliens”, with Mom as the alien queen guarding her brood, and Sigourney Weaver nowhere in sight. So we wait. I’m pretty convinced that this another in a long line of related mistakes, which would be evident when the stench of rotten eggs began to waft from the incubator.
Well, I was wrong. This morning, I saw something moving amongst the eggs. Something hairy. Well, fuzzy, anyway, but you’ll have to forgive me if the shock overwhelmed my senses just a bit. A baby quail. Then another, and then more, exploding from their shells like kernels in a bag of Jiffy Pop.
As the numbers grew, my panic did too; why was mom staying so long at work? It was just Jude, myself, and the dogs left here all alone to defend ourselves. All we could do was stack furniture against the doors in a desperate attempt at a final defense from the teeming predators.
Luckily, Mom came home and took the situation in hand. She has promised me that they are harmless, but I am not that gullible. I am fully aware that it would only take a swift, silent command from her to transform the peeping little quailings into voracious winged piranhas. No thank you; Charlie, Titus and I will remain in precautionary exile until we see the lights go off in the house. Then we’ll eeeeeease the door open, and slink past the kitchen table towards the safety of the bedroom.
At least in slumber, the terror is somewhat muted.
So where does it go from here? I do not know. All we do is continue to take it one second at a time, never letting down our guard for an instant. If we do not remain vigilant, all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the abundance of untamed vicious fowl. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the Casa del Whackos will endure for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
hey, Charlie…
Yo, Titus?
No more History Channel for Dad before bedtime…
