Another animal-related letter. We had to get into the pinchers for Reenie :).

Next week's letter is already partially written, but I was running out of time for the length it is so we switched over to this one (which was going to come next week or the week after) instead.

Again, just cold out of my head with no edits, so have mercy.

Here's another letter to my grandmother:

April 20, 2008

Dear Grandma,

I hope all is well with you. We’re doing quite well here. The kids both have colds, and are grumpy and whiny, but in the scheme of things this is absolutely nothing to complain about—just one of life’s annoyances.

LD will be three on Wednesday. I’ll probably take him out and let him ride some of the kiddy rides at the mall and get him an ice cream during the day and we’ll have cake and some presents that night. Avadore is very excited for his brother’s birthday, but Avadore just likes birthdays.

Well, we had some interesting news from Pocatello come in this week. It seems that one of our old neighbors was found in Mexico after a long manhunt, and has been arrested, charged, and is now waiting for his trial. He was a pleasant enough neighbor for a while—he was quiet and kept to himself. We never heard a peep out of him. He kept to his business and we kept to ours. But then pets in the neighborhood started disappearing.

First it was a pony and a goat, and then the butterfly population steadily decreased as did the cat population. We all thought it was a little weird, but the pony was getting on in years and looked pretty rough and the goat was always sneaking into people’s houses and eating toilet paper off the roll, and the butterflies were so plentiful they were covering the skies and affecting how much sun we got while the cats were roaming the streets in herds. So really, though we noticed, we sort of didn’t notice because suddenly things were seemingly much better.

And then the Doberman Pincer that lived behind us disappeared. Now that was big news. It was a beautiful animal, sleek and graceful. He was also very sweet, and he and our dog, Katie, had wonderful times together running back and forth along the fence that separated our yards. But, because it was such a beautiful animal, everyone thought someone had stolen the Doberman because they wanted it for their own.

And then the neighborhood started to smell. It smelled awful. It smelled worse than the sugar factory, Simplots, and Kraft combined. I mean it was just terrible. It smelled worse than the stockyards and the zoo on a hot day. So, of course, we called the city to say, “It's disgusting out here.”

Well, after the entire neighborhood called, the city finally came out to check on the stench and discovered it was originating from this particular gentleman’s house. You know, the one who always kept to himself. Well, they got a warrant and busted right into his house to find the most amazing thing: the man had been performing scientific experiments on the animals that had “gone missing”. There was a poat, and catterflies, and a Doberman Pincher.

You see, the quiet neighbor had taken the goat and pony and made one animal, and the cat and the butterflies to make another, and the Doberman and an earwig to make another. It was horrible and sad, and absolutely fascinating at the same time. I mean, the Doberman was suddenly twice its usual size and it had pinchers! Can you imagine getting a pinch
from that?

Well, as the authorities busted in, the guy busted out and headed south. He was found in Mexico last week and extradited to America. Evidently it’s pretty unusual for Mexico to be so cooperative in such a case, but they were afraid of what might be done with scorpions and burros and just couldn’t take the chance.

So he’s being charged with cruelty to animals, and the officials are trying to decide what else to charge him with. There’s nothing on the law books about this sort of thing, but they figure that this has to be a worse case than cruelty… Well, I’m sure the government will come up with something effective.
And the happy news is that one of our other neighbors is a certified genius at ten. That little girl, who we all thought was obnoxious because she’s always running through backyards looking for bugs for her collection, figured out how to undo what the “quiet” neighbor had done and the pony, goat, butterflies, cats, and Doberman Pincer are back home where they belong and all is well. The local zoo made a bid for the animals, but PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) got involved, as usual, and so the city said that the animals couldn’t be put on display and had to be returned to their original forms.

I hear the girl is getting a college scholarship in biology or some such, which is nice. I also hear all the neighbors aren’t too happy with how things turned out; they were happy with the pony, goat, butterflies, and cats gone. And they couldn’t care less about the dog. I guess you can’t please everyone.

I hope all is well and that you are doing great.

I love you,


Maggie