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It wasn?t just any afternoon. It was one of those lazy, snazzy afternoons after a long work of some sort. It was the kind with the lawn mower grunting lazily in the background of some finicky neighbor?s lawn, the kind where the air was balmy and warm and slightly humid enough to give you a sense of stickiness, the kind where the bugs gathering above the said lawn would fly up your nose and attempt to eat their ways to your brains for no apparent reason.

Maybe not.

Point was, after putting Samara to her nap, I went to the sunroom for a long reading session and a cup of the perfect tea in my best bone china.
I smiled upon remembering how she had tucked her paws under her, looking much like the offspring of a bumblebee and a squat sausage, but then all of a sudden splayed out her limbs and tail on all sides, reminding me of an ebony-and-gold firework. How sweet and innocence the youth of sleep was, reflected in her fuzzy baby coat, mirrored in her closed eyes, embraced in the gentle curves of her twitching tail. She seemed so innocent that it seemed that nothing could be more angelic.

Or as I was soon to discover, devious.

So I lay, basking in the warm June sunlight of the sunroom, luxuriating in the nature?s glory and wondering what was behind the door of the Dungeon of Terror and Doom in my book, when all of a sudden, like a rhapsody of tumult in the midst of the ocean of peace, CRASH!

Panic blazing through my mind and adrenaline flooding my veins like exploding fireworks, I dashed through the door, down the stairs, and into the room where Samara was supposedly napping- my first thought, someone had attempted to kidnap her and sell for on some black market! Yes, I?m a Defender of Wildlife- hoorah for environmentalists.

I ran in, my voice catching in my throat. ?Samara!? I cried, panicked, worried, anxious! ?Samara!? The cradle was empty. The blankets were strewn about. The stuffed animals lay in various nooks and crannies. But no Samara.

I?m sure that all mothers have known the haphazard desperation of a missing offspring. It is a strange stage that all parents know, when the mind surrenders logic and thought to the blind offense of panic and fear. And that stage I lapsed into, as easily as Samara into sleep. In my almost-dream state, I recall screaming, tearing out my hair, and charging down the halls with a baseball bat, ready to confront whoever took Samara and beat their brains out with the sports equipment, settle Samara back for Nappy Time with a few armed guards, and go back to kick the villain?s rear so high in the air he?d be seeing up it.

I dashed into the dining room where I heard the crash.

For some strange reason, an heirloom of great sentimental value can drain you of your ?I?m not materialistic? thoughts. There was a prized lute passed down in my family for generations, the finely wrought tuners and patterns spitting the dilapidation of time in the face and getting away with it, with help from soft cleaners and family love. Still, centuries later, it remained as my ancient ancestors had enchanted so many audiences with it?

And my eyes quickly fell from the strings, snapped and crooked, to the tuners laying a few feet away, to the decorative dragon?s head that roared through two separate pieces, to the graceful neck of the lute, now in Samara?s little paws. And like an angelic rain of the wings of cherubs, the fur that once rested so easily was winging its way through the air as if mourning the shattered treasure.

I could not speak; my throat had run dry. I could not think; my mind was in cahoots with my throat. I would not move, my brain had also run away with my throat and my mind.

But finally, I let out one long scream. Samara understood it well- she ran all the way back up the stairs and into her room to resume her nap out of my agonized sight.

I knelt down and nearly cried. That lute was in pieces. I don?t know what exactly it symbolized to me- perhaps the identity of my family. Perhaps the love that my departed ancestors had. Perhaps there blissful freedom of a soft plucked tune.

But then I realized something. Those things, the identity of my family, the love, the bliss, were not departed like the wholeness of the instrument.

The identity was in me, forming a new generation of musicians and scientists and scholars. The love and the bliss?

That love and that bliss was currently in her room, taking a nice long nap.

OH GAWD!

What the hell was I thinking when I agreed to this? Was I drunk? Drugged? Forcibly coerced or abducted and hypnotized by aliens?

Even if I had been visited by the Prince of Uranus, he obviously wasn’t going to help.

I had a mad tiger loose in the house.

Thankfully, it was just a small cub, no bigger than two feet long. She was Samara, and she looked like the cross between a bumblebee and a pompom that was stuck through the dryer with extra fabric softener. It had eyes peeping out of that fluffy coat. And it MRRREEEEOW!’ed like a rabid nasal Chihuahua.

So here I have a bumblebee fuzzy pompom that sounded like a nasal Chihuahua- yays! Cute! Adorable! Yes.

If she hadn’t been prowling around the bottom on the washer, growling- with me treed.

How embarrassing. One of the most promising genetic researchers of this era treed on top of a washer by a bumblebee.

“HELP!” I screamed.

No reply.

“HELP! ANYONE! HELP!” I wailed. “HEL- Eeeek!”

The ‘Thing’ named Samara chose that moment to jump up on her hind legs and snap at me.

“Rarrr!”

“EEEK”

“GARRR!”

“AHHH! HELP! HELP!”



…Okay. That was NOT helping.

I spent the better part of the afternoon like this, only more and more petrified. When the Samara-thing stretched out, yawned, and plopped over for a nap, I cautiously tipped my toe down-

“YARRRARRRAARRHGARARRRRRRRRRRRR!”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!”

So it was back on the washer for me.


In the end, eventually the Samara-thing got bored of me and left.

That was it- not flashing daring ninja escapes, no nothing.

Just the thing waltzing away, her tail in the air, and me climbing down.

s**t.

I left the Bunsen Burner on!

Samara's growing faster than I ever would have thought. She's gaining pound and pound and pound.

Of course, she's still pretty darn small. But she's getting tamer, even more affetionate...

Sometimes, when I'm feeling brave, I hold her and rock her to sleep. Those are the moments when I feel that this was all worth it. I hold her, warm fuzzy bumblebee, until she wakes up and demands food.

I'm running out of heavy whipping cream and milk. I really need to replenish my supply.

Hey, next time I go to the local Grocer's....

Why don't I take Samara with me?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no religious person. But I loved Christmas, the smell of sales in the air mingling with the heavenly scent of burning holiday cookies.

Samara obviously had no idea what holidays were. To her, days were all the same- eat, sleep, bite, and eat and sleep some more.

But I, being a silly human concerned with such trivaltries when there was research to be done, took a break from the test tubes and hit the mall.

What to get for Samara....

I passed baby boutiques with soft cuddly nostaligic stuffed animals that were not meant for babies for 2-inch long fangs.

There was a very cool light that played soft jingly music and flashed colors that would be no good for a hearning-sensitive baby with no color vision.

Oh sakes, and all the baby toys that were meant for infants with actual opposable thumbs! Not to mention all the baby clothes that weren't meant for tiger cubs.

In the end, I found what I was looking for.... Samara would love it I knew....

Just wait until Christmas! I verified my purchase and hurried back, on foot, to home.