Elmyra Trahan

You may or may not remember a cartoon in the 90s called "Tiny Toon Adventures". The premise was the next generation of cartoon characters went through "Acme Looniversity" to learn how to be cartoon characters from professors like Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny. There was a character, Elmyra, who LOVED animals. Loved to the point of suffocation, capture, injury. She definitely didn't live by the motto, "If you love it, set it free...Let's just say that there is a striking resemblance between Hannah and this cartoon character. And, it goes far beyond the red hair. Hannah is a pet killer.

Okay, I can't say conclusively that Hannah killed Mikie's frog. On one of our recent snow days, I turned around to find Hannah shaking the frog tank. And, for an eight hour period after that, Flippy (yes, the frog was named Flippy) was floating belly up, twitching, trying to upright himself as he struggled to survive.

Mikie was fairly accepting of Flippy's untimely demise (I omitted the small detail that Hannah had been seen shaking the tank when I told him of the frogs passing). His only request was that we get a "guinea pig that's black and white and call him Rhino."

And so, we introduce pet #2: Rhino (or "Whino" for those of us who don't recognize the letter "R"). So, in addition to working full time and caring for two kids, I have another small mammal to keep, clean, fed, and healthy. Oh, and safe, which, for Rhino's sake, I hope to have greater success with than Flippy.

Love, The Trahans