"Man's Best Friend, Indeed..."

This is my virtual hedgehog (what an age we live in!) Sideshow Cecil. Sy and I have had hedgehogs in the past, and they are great fun to play with, if you are careful. Our first pair were a big hit at college. They are so curious and love exploring places from which they are not easily extracted. They're also excellent climbers and runners, and must be fastidiously supervised, as they are, being so well armed, very brave and tenacious.

If you have never been in the presence of hedgehogs, I pity you. When they get startled, they roll into a tight ball and make a sound sort of like the laughter of Muttley. Thay eat everything from mealworms to cat food, peanut butter to corn nuts. The only bad thing about them is their habit of dying the most grusome, horribly agonizing deaths after about four or five years of life.

Our last hedgehog died due to the fact that it had an undeveloped twin, apparently which died in utero, residing inside of it. Our hedgehog grew around it's corpse while in the womb, and, apparently, that's detrimental to a hedgehog's health. We had another hedgehog die as the result of some sort of problem with it's reproductive system. I take these deaths as proof that there is no Intelligent Designer; I mean, it's got to be hard enough for hedgehogs to throw each other down and make sweet, sweet love in the first place, but then to make them so vulnerable to reproductive problems...what kind of God would do that?

So please feel free to play with Sideshow Cecil, he's right on my sidebar...but no pervy stuff. I'm looking in your direction, ESC...and Shannon (which is where I stole this from)...frankly, you all raise some red flags just by the virtue of your showing up here...