The Diary of Little Champ

Okay, I promise we’ll get back to mental health issues shortly, but during Memorial Day weekend, when I was DEVOID OF ALL SOCIAL PLANS, I spent some time with Little Champ, my sugar glider. I asked him to write a little something about his life, a la Baruchito’s Homecage. He was surprisingly enthusiastic about the project.

My name is Little Champ, and I’m a sugar glider. That means I’m a small chipmunk-like marsupial who can glide through the trees of my native Australia like a flying squirrel. Only, um, I’m living in an apartment in West Philadelphia, so mostly I just glide from human to pillow.

I live with my parents, Buster and Mela. Papa has been neutered, but he’s still a bit of a troublemaker. He loves to hop around and play tug of war. He’s also partial to wicker.

Mama is very bitey. I don’t know how Papa puts up with her. While Papa and I like the humans and play with them, Mama always tries to wound them. She also gets very aggressive if you give her a piece of hardboiled egg.

The humans I speak of are Uncle Vince and Aunt Liz. Our uncle was opposed to us at first, but now he buys us waxworms and lets Papa groom him. Our aunt is the one who gives us that weird paste for dinner. She also plays tug of war with Papa, and kisses my head all the time, even though I mostly don’t like to be kissed.

I am called Little Champ because even when I was very small and sort of hairless and could hardly open my eyes, Uncle saw that I was quite triumphant. Now he calls me Champy, and sometimes he sings the Little Champ Theme Song™, which makes Aunt giggly.

We love anything fleece, so we sleep all day in pouches that Aunt made from children’s hats she bought at Second Mile Thrift Store. Some would say she’s cheap that way, but we love the hats. Fleece is our biggest weakness. Shove anything fleecy in front of us, and we lose our minds.

At night we come out of our fleece paradise and press our faces against the bars like small furry prisoners. Aunt and Uncle take pity on us and let us out of the cage.

It’s extremely fun. There are pillows with feathers in them. Have I mentioned feathers? We love them more than fleece. So first we have to attack the pillows. Then, after we tire of that, we jump on the chair and play hide-and-seek. Then we scramble over to the bookshelf and nibble on the books. Then, if we are lucky, Aunt and Uncle will come in and we can climb on them, which we like because Uncle, in particular, is very tall.

Sometimes I get special treatment, which involves staying on Uncle’s shoulder until he puts me in a cabinet with many dishes and bowls. Mama tends to stew in her own bad mood in the bookcase, while Papa tries to escape and Auntie gets very upset, yelling, “Buster! Come back here!” Evenings are very exciting.

Then the humans go to sleep. We don’t know why they do this. It’s backwards. We stay up and make hissing noises, which is how we talk to each other. Sometimes I bark loudly to get the humans’ attention, and then Auntie stumbles over and yells at me. The other night she sprayed water on me. I think maybe I won’t bark at night anymore.

That’s all for now. I have to return to my pouch and eat a piece of Trader Joe’s Fruit Leather. See you soon!

[This image is of a glider that's not me but looks like me. I found it at Sandman's Sugar Gliders. There were some cute blond girls on that site. Auntie has taken the computer away from me.]

liz | 11:57 AM | Uncategorized