A Tale of the Lost Tail, Part II

Apparently lightening does strike twice! Ever since the first "incident," Gabby has done well with the rule of not taking her gerbils out without me there. I suppose it's my own fault as I didn't explicitly tell her that she shouldn't pull off their tails. I took for granted that this would be obvious to a 4 year old, especially given previous events. Gabby will put her hand in the cage and "pet" Sunny and Michael as they trembled in terror. We take them out every evening and play with them. This actually consists of me holding one of them as it poops in my hand and Gabby laughs. Gabby refuses to hold them herself as she has is afraid of breaking them. I naively thought I had nothing to worry about with Gabby hurting the gerbils again.

I thought all was well tonight. Gabby was bathed and in bed and I was enjoying an episode of Samantha Who. I hear the faint sounds of Gabby crying upstairs. I pause the show and can just make out Gabby crying, "My mommy is going to be so mad at me. I can't ever tell her what I've done!" I was actually hopeful that she'd let the gerbil out and it wasn't another bloody nub of a tail. I slowly climbed the stairs dreading a replay of events of June 13.

Gabby is sobbing under her blanket about breaking Sunny and me being mad. "Gabby, what happened?" I tried to ask as calmly as possible. "I broke Sunny! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to." I feared the worst, that Sunny was dead. I looked in the cage and Sunny was still in there and alive. "Gabby, what happened?" She tearfully answered, "I don't want you to be mad. I didn't mean to, but I broke Sunny's tail!" I asked, "Well, where is it?" Gabby was calming down and said, "I picked it up and threw it away in the trash."

I felt a small victory in that act by Gabby. Apparently, hiding my revulsion had paid off, leaving Gabby able to dispose of gerbil tails herself. I turned my face away from Gabby as the urge to laugh hysterically was growing stronger with my assessment of the situation. I was grateful to be suppressing laughter and not vomit with this second bout of broken tails. I angled to look at Sunny's tail and it appeared that only a quarter of it was missing rather than half of it like Michael. I still couldn't believe this had happened again.

Gabby asked if Sunny was ok. I told her I thought she would be. I also told her if she killed her gerbils, she wasn't getting new ones. Gabby said, "But Sunny will just chew it off and then she and Michael will be the same. She won't be dead, it's just a little broken. I am really sorry I broke Sunny, too." I went over the rule with the addendum that Gabby never touches the gerbils' tails. Michael doesn't have much tail left to grab, but Sunny unfortunately has enough tail left that can be further broken. Gabby has cried herself asleep again for breaking her pets. I'm just really glad she threw that tail away herself. And as Gabby managed to point out, at least they have broken tails together. And I pointed out that they can cower in the corner in terror together when Gabby approaches. If our life were a Pixar movie, Gabby would be the kid in Toy Story who mutilates his toys. Sunny and Michael have got view Gabby like that. Poor gerbils!

See, Sunny has lot more tail left than Michael.