My Daughter Laura's Wild Ass

This is a real picture of the donkey-like Somali Wild Ass that my daughter Laura calls "hers". The ass actually lives at the Oklahoma City Zoo, and it may interest you to know that I've lied to my daughter for more than 10 years now regarding her ass!

I have been lying to my kids for years, and the funniest thing about this fact is that they lie right back to me, and we all know what the jig is. I will look Reuben squarely in the face at times and tell him that he was misdelivered in 1986 to my house - the address on the stork's package clearly said the street just to the north of us, but I wanted a baby! I wanted a baby boy, so I took him! I never had any intention of giving him back, and I moved immediately so that no one would find me - but, I go on to tell him, that I still have the address and the receipt for his delivery that fine March afternoon, and that if he doesn't clean his room RIGHT NOW, I have every notion to send him right back to where he came from!

Well, it's the same with Laura's ass. She was 8 years old and had learned a new word at school. The word, you guessed it - ASS. She had been called a stupid ass by a kid on the playground and she began crying about it. I told her "Laura, there are no stupid asses - asses are little donkey like horse things and they live all over the world - they travel well, they help people, they make very little fuss - to be honest, I don't think God ever made a smarter animal!" She believed me. BUT, she wanted to see for herself. So, I did what I always do in these situations - I called the Zoo for verification that they had a donkey-type animal there so that I could prove to my kid that she wasn't actually suppose to be upset when someone called her a donkey, horse, burro - whatever...an ass.

We made it to the Zoo, and there you go. One solid, beautiful, fun to stare at ASS. I even lied to my daughter telling her that the Zoo was going to give it to her for her 9th birthday if she would only do all of her homework for the next 6 weeks. She knew full well that I was lying through my teeth - she looked at me and she rebutted "Mom, the Zoo called and said that I could take my ass home with me if I wanted to." I told her she could do whatever she wanted to with her ass, it was her ass, and if she thought it best to sleep with her ass she should do it, she should feed her ass, she should water her ass, she should even play with her ass - it was HER ass! She thanked me, begged me for ice cream, and we left the Zoo - happy.

Today, 10 years later - Laura is calling my bluff. She knows the Zoo has two Somali Wild Asses and she wants one for real. She's almost 18 and I told her today that I would love to buy her a new ass but that it was cost prohibitive to do so. She would need a permit to host her ass, and if her ass refused to stay with her she would have to board her ass. I asked her if she wanted to leave it at the Zoo and maybe just visit her ass from time to time, but she was insistant - saying she didn't like random, unknown people staring at her ass - and maybe it would be best to keep it closer to home. I love my kid. She sees things from the same colored glasses I do, and makes life THAT much easier to cope with.

What Laura doesn't know is that the Zoo has told me where I can actually pick up an ass for about $2000 and the only permit I would need would be an exotic animal permit, costing somewhere between $300 and $500. When you think about it that's not too much to pay for a new ass, not in Oklahoma...I've seen much more expensive asses in Beverly Hills, NYC, Chicago for instance - no land really. Can you imagine keeping your ass on concrete? No, you need lots of space to run your ass, and you really should have a durable fenceline too - Laura's ass is very very important to me, I don't want it to get out, or worse - get into the wrong hands!

We'll know more about the probability of getting her what she wants a little closer to May 7 - until then, her ass must stay exactly where it is! (If you want to take a look at my daughter's little ass - it will cost you about $6.00 for an adult, and the good news is, every kid in the world can look too! It's a beautiful thing! (She named it Mystique)