and here i thought i'd already lost it

every friday from 7 to 11, i volunteer at the at a wildlife rehabilitation center. more specifically, i volunteer in the mammal nursery. basically that means that i feed orphaned baby bunnies and squirrels (but mostly baby bunnies) formula out of a syringe.

so this past friday i'm volunteering, right? i'm cradling a baby bunny swaddled in a square of fleece, coaxing it to swallow like 5 ccs of formula. business as usual. that is, until my crew leader holds up one of the squirrels and says, "kate, check it out."

i say, "wow." because this squirrel, it's got a fucking boner. i'm not making this up.

and she says, "yeah. it got so bad that we had to separate him from his littermates."

and i say, "why?" i say, "were they fighting?"

and she says, "no, it's not like that. sometimes when baby animals are orphaned - kittens especially - they think that their penises are nipples, so they suck on them."

and i say, "oh." what i don't say is, is that i'll never be able to look a kitten in the eyes again without wondering if it's ever wrapped its little pink lips around its littermates' penises until they got tiny boners.

and she says, "yeah. this one in particular's got it bad." then she squeezes pus out of the squirrel's penis with her thumb and forefinger.

and that's how i lost my innocence for good.