New Family Pet

So this is our new family pet. If you know anything about us Thomas' we are not animal people. Even though I grew up with dogs and cats...okay big dogs, not chihuahua's and a couple of cats that did not meet with a good fate. Spooky, named because he/she was black was kind of the alley cat that was not allowed into the house. It was my job to climbed the gigantic built in barbeque and put the food on the top shelf ( I wonder if I still have a picture of it - it was HUGE!) Anyway, Spooky got "beaten" up pretty bad in a cat fight. We lived in a pretty good neighborhood but as a I said, Spooky was an alley cat and I guess you can always find "bad cats" even in a good neighborhood. Our other cat, Patches, was a stupid cat that always left her tongue hanging out of her mouth. However the main reason of the cat story is to tell that Patches was also dumb enough to climb into our dryer......and yes, this does not end well. Picture a late Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles. It is the early 80's and Dick and Shirley are heading out for the evening and Melanie is home watching movies and her younger brother. Well, for Dick and Shirley to make a clean get away, they have to sneak out the back door, which can be blocked by an open dryer door. So, Shirley opens the dryer to retrieve a classic pair of tan cord's for Dick and leaves the door open. Once they are ready to leave, probably 5-10 minutes later, Dick and Shirley walk towards the back door, shut the dryer, turn it back on, and leave out the back door for their "getaway." Now, I am of course happy for some "movie" time and proceed to watch something on the TV. I begin to notice a tumping noise but try to ignore it as much as I can. However, it persists! My movie and the dryer finally end about 45 minutes later and I no longer hear the thumping, now I hear a faint meowing. I finally decide I better see what is going on when I realize that the meowing is coming from the dryer. I realize that this is not going to be a good sight, so I quickly call Vicki Barfield, our neighbor across the street and explain what I think has happened. Before Vicki gets to our house, I open the dryer and a very dizzy Patches somewhat crawls out. I am freaked out and do not want to touch her. She makes her way out of the dryer and about 10 feet into the kitchen, kind of twisting and crawling - and suddenly dies with paws outstretched. She is now buried in the Brown Cemetary with all the other animals that I grew up with.

Now, why do I tell you all this---my point is that I loved dogs, not cats too much, growing up but I was overruled by the Thomas tradition of not having pets. And so my daughters only choice is to have this musical Chihuahua that sings "Mamacita, donde esta Santa Claus..." So if you want to see this in person, stop by and our family will perform for you!