For those of you who may have been afraid that I had not yet really experienced Texas living...

The other day I was standing near the back door, taking clothes out of the dryer when Kelley's mom starts beating on door yelling, "Open up! Open up!" I freaked out and couldn't possibly imagine what was wrong. It was early in the morning, the sun was shining and it seemed to be relatively peaceful outside. I dropped my clothes, opened the door and screamed when she pushed through carrying this...


That's right my friends, an armadillo, and about a 20 pound one at that. I took off running, yelling, "Why on earth did you bring that thing in here?!" She practically chased me through the house saying, "Take a picture! Hurry!" I was like, are you kidding me...

But, being the nice person that I am, I grabbed the camera, silently praised God for a good zoom and took this picture of her with her new friend.

Once she deemed this picture satisfactory she took our new friend, this prehistoric descendent of the oldest species of mammal still in existence and placed it in the backyard. She came back in sweating and out of breath and I was waiting with the obligatory, "What on earth was that all about..." question. She proceeded to describe in great detail about how a whole bunch of inbred dogs next door had found this poor thing and ganged up on him (hence the blood). When she realized what was going on, she went into wilderness superhero mode, cleared the front yard fence in one jump and started kicking dogs in the jaws until they gave up the furry-bellied dinosaur. She then went on to say, "If you ever pick up an armadillo make sure you get it toward the middle of the shell. They have really big teeth and claws because they dig up roots to eat."

I appreciate that people who don't know me very well think that for any reason under the sun I would pick up an armadillo.

Two days ago I got a letter from my beautiful friend Linda who is serving with the Peace Corps in Togo. Linda is a real Texan and periodically her correspondance serves to enlighten me with important "Living in Texas" tips. This letter, written weeks prior to the afore mentioned incident just happened to say, "Oh, by the way, don't touch armadillos. They carry leprosy."

Rest assured, all 3 of you who read this that I did not in any way touch that armadillo. But, if for some reason one of my limbs randomly falls off my body mid-conversation with someone, I suppose we'll all know why.