Our neighbor came over the other day with some Christmas gifts for the girls. (A little late, but who's going to look a gift horse mongoose in the mouth, right?) One was this little guy. He reminded me of the Rudyard Kipling story that I read about a thousand times as a kid.

If you're not familiar with this worn out fad from the 90s collector's item trend, all the Beanie Babies come with ear tags - ostensibly so that we can track them when we release them into the wild. The tags have information on them like the animal's name, it's birth date, and a some little tidbit of information about the animal. I don't collect these things and I'm incredibly brazen about removing the tags. *gasp* So if that kind of thing makes you nauseous, you might want to stay away from my house.

This little guy's name is Runner and below is the poem printed on his ear tag which, by the way, The Dormouse has memorized and repeats to everyone she meets, but doesn't always explain the origin of the poem. So yeah, it sounds like she's talking about herself:

I'm not so mean, I'm really shy.
But every cobra has to die.
I grab them by their little head,
And whack them 'til they're stone cold dead!

I think someone at Ty has been watching too much Wild Kingdom.