I often refer to my bottle-raised lamb as my adopted daughter, because itâs mostly true, it temporarily keeps nosy strangers from knowing Iâm an eeeevil childfree woman, and itâs hilarious when people find out. And by that time theyâre usually too disturbed by the âher-daughter-is-a-sheepâ thing to get on my case about the âwoman-with-no-husband-or-kids-oh-the-horrorâ thing.
Most of my friends are aware that I do this, and will back me up in conversations without batting an eye when I reference my daughter. And the best part is that they literally never drop the story. They just 100% all the time accept that I have a two-year-old adopted daughter. The fact that she happens to be a sheep is an unimportant detail, not worth mentioning until an anecdote gets too weird to plausibly be about a human toddler.
Which actually takes much longer than youâd think, since human toddlers apparently have absolutely zero sense. âShe bites if you stop paying attention to herâ is believable, âshe tries to eat rocks out of the landscapingâ is believable, âshe stuck her head through a fence and couldnât get outâ is believable. âShe jumped a five foot fence and came screaming back into the house through the dog door when I left her outside in the pastureâ does get some strange looks, though usually not for the right reason.
Occasionally the joke gets turned around on me, though. I posted a picture on my not-tumblr blog of her wearing my glasses, and every comment was âOh my gosh she looks just like you!!!â âI would never have known she was adopted If you hadnât told me!!â âAre you sure thatâs not an old picture of you?!â
So apparently this is what I look like:
At least she does look cute in glasses.