Current mood:

nervous

On the other paw...
Now that my peanut-brained brother has gotten THAT out of his system and is off doing a "happy dance" in the kitchen, I'm afraid that I have to bring a darker note to these happy tidings.

The reappearance of gooshy food isn't just some blissful bounty from the heavens. At the same time that The Ritual began working again, we were visited with a horrible, unspeakable plague: The Toddler.

This creature that has periodically infested our lives seemed quite innocent at first. It's not that much larger than we are (in fact, Caramon's first query was if he could eat it). Low enough to the ground that it's in no danger of tripping over or stepping on us unnoticed, I originally thought it to be a great improvement on the standard human size. But two things rapidly became aparrent that killed my initial assessment:

1. The Toddler is both too short and too undeveloped to retrieve and open cans of gooshy food.

2. It screams.

Upon seeing us, The Toddler's immediate reaction is to shriek "KIIIIH-IIIIYYYYYY!!" at a pitch and volume that could shatter glass (and feline nerves). It then launches itself in a kamikaze gallop towards the nearest furry body, arms outstretched and weight thrown forward in a way that can only end in a full-body tackle of Said Furry Thing. If discouraged from said tackle, The Toddler proceeds to "pet" the nearest cat, which consists of whacking one of us with a palm, a toy, or even once (Bast herself knows why) a toothbrush.

I have no clear idea why The Toddler was visited upon my brother and I. I can only conjecture that it is some form of heavenly balance, a karmic suffering to bring enlightenment and true appreciation of peace and gooshy food. Fortunately The Toddler only appears a few times a month, so our lives (and sanity) are not constantly in peril. My brother seems to have resigned himself to the situation with an almost Zen calmness, letting himself be shrieked at and whacked on under the belief that "any attention is good attention". But he also cannot see the connection between The Toddler and gooshy food... I know that the creature will once again descend upon us soon.

So if anyone needs me this weekend... I'll be under the couch.