Well, it's finally happened...

...I've become "that person." You know, the one who gets a couple of animals and pretty quickly goes gaga over them.

What did me in was two gerbils who were eventually named Madge and Midge. Madge, the tan-and-white gerbil, is so named because she's timid, shy, and sleeps a lot- much like Dame Edna's sidekick, Madge Allsop. And Midge? Well, Midge-sometimes-Midgie got her name completely by coincidence because it just went so well with Madge. She's just about all black with a couple of white parts here and there, and about as opposite from Madge as anything with a personality can get. Midge never seems to sleep, runs on the wheel like crazy, and is the one I'm most worried will somehow squirm out of the cage and take off like a bat out of hell (reminds me a lot of myself.)

But gosh darn, these two little critters are a lot of fun. Although reticent, Madge is usually the first one to the cage door once I let it down, though she rarely does more than sniff my hand and occasionally give a finger a little tasting nibble. It's Midge who'll take a smidgen (sorry, couldn't resist) longer to approach and only wait a millisecond before hopping up on my hand to explore her new freedom.

And don't get me started on what happens when I put them in their rodent balls. Midge, naturally, runs everywhere in an eager effort to explore her surroundings, and she's finally learned/learning not to run the ball into immovable objects. Madge, on the other hand, is...well, I don't want to say dumb, but she doesn't really do anything in the ball. Just sort of sits in there and occasionally stands up, but is nervous of (insert appropriate fear-causing adjective specific to gerbils here) I have no idea. Eventually, she goes to sleep, just like she always does.

So this is my "that person" post. I'm having fun burying the black one in a pile of pine chips and feeling her purr, and seeing the tan one assert her dominance every now and then. And with the two of them relatively easy to maintain (except when they kick a plethora of pine chips waaay out of the cage), it looks like the biggest problem will be not completely descending into the world of anthropomorphization.