Dead animals and the girls who love them...

I just watched the most hiloriffying video on Facebook.  Get it?  Hilarious + Horrifying = Hiloriffying! 

It was a youtube video of a little girl playing with her new pet dead squirrel.  Her parents were either ignorant hilbillies who didn't give a second thought to the dead squirrel or (and this is how I prefer to think of them) pragmatists who realized that the germ warfare that needed to occur after the dead squirrel was removed from it's live BFF could wait five minutes for the moment to be recorded for posterity...and youtube!

I can totally understand how most parents would have a visceral, nauseating, hysterical response to seeing their young child hugging and loving a rodent carcass.  Not me though.  I'm desensitized.

Why?  Two weeks ago, Molly and I had this exchange...

Molly: "Mama, have you ever felt a bird's feathers?"


Me: "Yes I have honey.  Why?"


Molly: "Aren't they soooo soft!  I never knew how soft a birdie would be!"


Me: "Oh. Did you find a feather outside?"


Molly: "No. I petted a birdie today Mama!  At recess!  And it was sooo soft!  The softest thing ever!"


Me: "Oh, did someone bring a bird to school?"


Molly: "No."


Me: "Well, then where was it?"


Molly: "Outside.  Near the playground"


Me: "How did you get it to stay still long enough to pet it?"


Molly: "Because it was dead!"


(Well DUH!!  Of COURSE!!  Shoulda seen that one coming from a mile away!)Me: "And you pet the dead bird....because..."


Molly: "Zoe did it."


Me: "You pet the dead bird because Zoe did it?"


Molly: "Yep!  Zoe pet the dead bird and she said it was so soft I wouldn't believe it!  And so I had to pet it too, you know, so I would believe it.  And whaddaya know, she was right!  It was so soft. SO soft! And legless."


Me: "It had no legs?"


Molly:  "Nope!  Gone.  No legs! Why do you think it had no legs, Mama?  Do you think a cat ate them and that's why the bird died?"


Me: "Ummmm, maybe.  You washed your hands after school right?"


Molly: "Of course!"


Me: "Um, why don't you go wash them again, reallllllly welllll just to make sure, okay?"


Molly:  "Sure Mama!"

And off she went, skipping to the bathroom, with me wretching inside, praying that the dead bird fairy would take pity on the sweet young thing and let her not come down with ebola, or west nile virus, or flesh-eating bird flu.

So far, so good.