Joey Sitting

Raise your hand if you know what this is.

If you said baby kangaroo, you get a point.  If you said Bennett's Wallaby joey, go away.  You know way to much about animals to be reading my blog.


Remember the Walter/conference call debacle?

Flash forward a couple of summers, to the Great SAHM Experiment and the couple from Ohio.  For reasons I won't go into here (they involve the recession, the price of gas, the cost of a nanny, the zookeeper and I working 24/7, the daughters, and a really untimely decision) I found myself in this position:

The zookeeper:  "So, we are buying a wallaby joey from a couple in Ohio.  They're very protective of her, and decided to hand deliver her to us and check out the facility before they completely agree to letting us have her.  They arrive today, and no one who works for the zoo will be here when they come.  You have to meet them, take them on a tour of the animal enclosures, and assure them that their baby will be well cared for.  They are pretty attached, so you have to make it good."

Me:  "Wait, what?  You're joking, right?  You trust me, the know nothing about the zoo diva, to represent?"

Him:  "Not really, but I don't have any other choice.  Do me a favor.  Don't mess it up."

Well, since you put it that way.

Turns out the couple from Ohio had a son who was going off to college (oh, gawd, deja vu) and who happened to have a wallaby. 

**Yet another side note.  In most states, wallabies are restricted, no contact species.  Another animal that really isn't supposed to be a pet.  Some states, like Ohio, don't have these restrictions. So before you get junior a kangaroo for his birthday, I recommend you check out whether it's even, you know, legal for you to have one.  And then I still recommend a big, fat no.  But hey, what do I know?  I'm just the zookeeper's wife.**

Now, the zookeeper said they were protective, and that turned out to be the understatement of the century.  Here's the back story.  The college bound son had a female wallaby.  He then acquired a male wallaby, and decided to house them together.  I'm guessing he was absent the day they taught reproductive biology in school, and thought it would be a really great idea to put them together for the long haul.  Apparently even mom and dad missed that class, because everyone in that fam was surprised as hell when boy met girl, and one plus one equaled three. (No wonder so many back seat encounters end up in a whoops.)  Mamma Ohio, though proud to be a surrogate gramma, soon realized that her son needed to go to school, school costs money, and so does wallaby upkeep.  Especially of the baby sort.

I spent the morning cleaning the house, and then setting up a playpen (seriously) to keep her in.  Except that the playpen had two huge gashes in the netting on the sides, definitely big enough for either a joey to get out or a cat to crawl in through.  Well, that's not going to work, and neither is duck tape (which apparently fixes every damn thing except netting.)  I'm all out of white thread since the daughters ransacked the sewing room the last rainy day we had, and I'm almost out of time.  The nearest fabric store is a 30 minute drive away, one hour round trip, and that's just about how long I have till the folks from Ohio get here.  Thankfully I found some white tulle and thread at the craft store in town, and was able to sew tulle patches on a playpen...for a kangaroo.  Oy.

Just in time, too, because Mamma and Papa Ohio pulled into the drive as I was finishing up.  They get out, and Mamma has the joey in a pouch hanging from around her neck.  Now, I've made these before.  In fact here's one I made:

Mamma Ohio's looked a lot like this one:

With longer straps.

I knew I was in for an interesting afternoon.

We go through the facility and I point to all the animals, while they ask cursory questions that even dumbass me can answer (check it out, their eyes are glazing over too!)  I even take them outside to see the wallaby enclosure, complete with a house that has a door and a window and everything.  They don't have many questions, in fact don't seem in the least bit curious.  So I start to relax and think this is going to go a lot easier than I expected.

I bring them back into the house (excuse me, the "residence" as the zookeeper likes to call it) and show them the playpen set up in the dining room.  I have a check in my pocket signed by the zookeeper for the agreed price, and at the rate we're going I can have the couple from Ohio on the road in no time and get an hour or so of quiet before the constantly bickering heathens daughters get home from school...when suddenly we have entered the Twilight Zone.

Mamma and Papa Ohio see the playpen, and it's like watching someone step from a black and white movie into a full color animation.  They look at it, and then me, the way a drowning person will look at a lifeline, and all at once I have a new hat to wear.  I am the Wallaby Whisperer.  Because these folks do think of this baby as a baby, and treat her that way.  Mamma Ohio takes her everywhere, won't let her out of her sight for a minute.  To the grocery store, the post office, wherever she goes, so goes the joey.  And it turns out that they have the expectation that a) I will be the primary joey caretaker, b) I know everything there is to know about joeys, and c) this animal is going to be a pet.  Well shit and shove me in it.  When in doubt, just smile and nod.  A lot.

Mamma starts to tell me all about her adventures in joey raising, including how she has tried to time the baby's, um, evacuatory needs, (because no matter what they're made of, joey pouches stink and get wet, for obvious reasons) and get her to use the toilet by holding her over it and sort of lifting/pulling on her tail.  Are you seriously f*#king kidding me right now?  You are trying to potty train a kangaroo?  How's that working out for you?...is what I was thinking. what I said was

Me:  "Um, Wow.  Okay."

So, Mamma starts unpacking a separate diaper bag she brought with her, and it mostly held what I thought it would.  Baby bottles, with the special long nipples, and Joey milk powdered formula.  But when she hauled out real, actual diapers I honestly thought I was going to fall over.

Mamma:  "I have these, but it's been hard to get and keep them on her.  It's just that it isn't easy washing the pouch every day, and she won't go when I hold her over the toilet."

No shit?  Imagine that...

Of course, this is when I realize that, professional voice and ability to bs with the best of them not withstanding, if I don't get these people out of my dining room right the frick now, I'm going to loose it.  And if ever there wasn't a time to get the the unstoppable giggles, this would be it.

I'm still not entirely certain how I managed it, but in the end the couple from Ohio left with their check, and left me joey sitting for the rest of that day...and many more after, now that I think about it.