Wednesday, July 28, 2010

It's a . . . mutant rodent


Yup, I saw that every day for three months. Not a part of the NICU I miss.
This is a conversation that happened more than a couple times.
Me: "That thing is creepy. What is it?"
Corey: "It is a mouse."
Me: "It is NOT a mouse; it doesn't have a tail."
Corey: "Its tail is hiding. It is a mouse. Just stop looking at it."
But it is not a mouse. Here are the other guesses I have heard: gerbil, guinea pig, otter, prairie dog, beaver, apple mole. Nope, nope, nope.
The closest thing I ever got to an answer at MeritCare was in a conversation with a PICU nurse who overheard me commenting on it. She agreed that it is not the most welcoming looking animal and when I asked her what it is supposed to be, she said that it is a combination of two animals, but she couldn't remember what. My response was, "so it's a mutant rodent?" She said, "yes, I suppose it is." So there you go.
Of course, you can find the answer to anything on the Internet, and the MeritCare page actually gave me a full answer. (Why I didn't think of that when I was looking at it every day for three months, I don't know. My brain wasn't functioning normally.) So here you go, from "Alfunz" (yes, that is his name) himself: "I was born in the mountains past the Willow Windmill. My mother is a Pika and my father is a Dormouse… so I'm kind of a Peeka-Door, but I just like to think of myself as tan and fuzzy."
A pika and a dormouse, why didn't I think of that. . .
There is your NICU trivia for the day.

3 comments:

  1. That really is a rather strange looking rodent....

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  2. Wow...I am sorry you had to look at that everyday!

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  3. Best ever! :) I was trying to explain it to Chris when we were there but I couldn't remember what two animals were smooshed together to make it. I should have taken a picture of the teen(?) mutant rodent in the PICU, whom I find equally disturbing.

    Hey, I feel a little bit of a song there... "Teenage Mutant Freaky Rodent, Teenage Mutant Freaky Rodent, Rodent in the PICU, Rodent power!" (Substitute Baby for Teenage and NICU for PICU and you're all set for the baby statue theme song...)

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