Ever since the iguana died, there has been a hole in our lives. It's about two feet deep, five feet tall, and four feet wide. Yes, there is a big empty space where his cage once sat. I was shocked (and thrilled) when Daddy threw away his custome-made monstrosity of a cage. But I haven't thrown a party yet. In fact, a whole two weeks have now gone by, and it's starting to look like I was right to be a bit hesitant with my joyful celebration.

A replacement animal is in the works. Daddy is now on a mission to find a turtle for the pond. Said turtle will move indoors for the winter because surprise, surprise, Daddy did keep all the essentials for getting some type of creature. So far, the gods of turtle acquisition have been helping me out. Turtles are on sale at Petco, but the four Petcos that Daddy has checked so far were sold out. The one store he found them at wanted more than double what Petco sells them for. So he waits. And tries to pressure me into calling every Petco in town to find him his turtle. Oh wait, it's not "his" turtle. He's trying to convince me that Alexis wants a turtle. Last time I checked, Alexis was happy with just having dogs and cats for pets, but whatever.

Now I must start a new game. The delay game. I'm going to see if I can delay the turtle purchase over and over again until Daddy forgets. It has worked in the past when he tried to bring home various critters, so wish me luck. I have a trip to Indy on my side. We'll be there all next week. It really wouldn't make sense to buy a turtle then leave it, now would it?