She wants a guinea pig!

I have a certain child, who shall remain nameless, but is in that awkward stage where a shower is needed daily but who does not yet see the need and therefore is nowhere close to being self-motivated. In other words, peers have not yet mentioned the greasy hair or body odor.

So yesterday, when we arrived at our King's Strings concert venue and I realized that the hair I previously thought was wet-out-of-the-shower was instead greasy from no shower, I was more than disappointed. I asked how it happened that this child had not gotten a shower when the directions have specifically been given for a daily dip in the shower. With shampoo. I was given "the look" and told, "I didn't have time; I had to do all of my chores" which really meant,

"Oh, dear mother. You are to be pitied among women for not understanding my plight. I awakened at 6AM (of my own accord) to find the list of Saturday chores to include the usual: Clean your room. Bring your laundry to the laundry room. Take laundry from said room into your room and put it away. Where it belongs. No exceptions. And no, behind the bed or back in the laundry basket are not acceptable options. Practice your instrument. Clean your assigned bathroom. You made it clear that ALL of these jobs were to be completed by noon when we would be leaving for this performance. I slaved away all morning and when the hour of noon arrived I was weary from my 6 hours of perpetual labor and left with no time for such a menial and unneccesary undertaking."

Rendered speechless, I walked away. What could I say to such dedication to the tasks of the household? And here I was, out getting a massage to ease my aching too-much-Victor-carrying back all while this child was toiling away, working one's fingers to the bone, not caring about the blood, sweat, and tears that it took this wee one to accomplish the mountain-load of work assigned for the day. With only 6 hours in which to complete it. I had been put in my place for certain.

Until I arrived home and found that over half of the tasks had not been completed as "the look" had implied.

And then I checked my computer for the first time that day to find an email from this child with the subject line Really cute! and this photo:


And The Good Doctor found this artistically colored picture in his closet:

And this one in his sock drawer:

All of this piggy-backing on last week's essay:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Since my gerbils died I have been thinking about the possibility of getting another pet. I narrowed my list down to guinea pigs. When I did my research on guinea pigs all the websites said they made great pets. Here are just a few of the things I learned.
1. Diet: their diet is mostly veggies and they also eat guinea pig food. They also need to eat grass hay.
2. What you need to buy: Guinea pigs need a cage (of course), food, bedding, nail trimmers, food bowl, brush, and newspaper is sometimes used but doesn't have to be used.
3. Cost: they cost about $35.00 at petco and cages are about the same (I'm not sure but we might have a cage already) those are the big things and then of course we need food and bedding and a bed but I could sew/make a bed and the food doesn't cost much.

I even have a plan for cost. I will use $15 out of my bank account and I will be saving up $90 for my New Guinea pig. You might wonder how I will save up. Well I will do chores for you guys and I will be patient and wait until I have enough money for a New Guinea Pig.

I hope you consider everything I just told you. Thank you for reading

Love, Eden King (and she got her sister to sign, too, for good measure)

P.S. Hope would get a 2nd one because guinea pigs are herd animals.

And this is the child who didn't have time to complete her chores (supposedly to perfection) in 6 hours, certainly had no time left-over to shower, but had time to search the internet for guinea pig photos and for coloring?

So now I'm thinking, maybe if I paid her to get a shower, we could kill two birds with one stone. She could save up for her New Guinea Pig and I could get her to take a shower. And she did say in last week's letter, "Well I will do chores for you guys" so maybe she would actually do some chores in those 6 hours on a Saturday morning instead of searching for cute guinea pig photos with ribbons in their fur.

Except that we're not getting guinea pigs because we have family members who are highly allergic to them.

But don't tell this child or she might stop showering and doing her chores. For money. To buy her New Guinea Pig.