Menopausal Hedgehogs by Kimberly Quinn Smith    

Today I would like to tell you about our discussion on menopausal hedgehogs. Last night, I took our oldest daughter to her first 4H meeting. This is my kid that does her own thing. She is my artist child. She likes art and French. She loves animals, sometimes more than people. I can’t blame her there. I feel that way myself  sometimes.

The meeting was at the town library. We got there right on time. People were coming from the towns next to ours also. As our town has a mere 992 residents, this is a good thing to invite other towns to join in. Plus, as we do live in Northern Vermont, one would assume that farming and agricultural clubs would be quite popular. We recognized almost everybody. There was a grandpa and his grandson. There was a woman who said that she home-schooled. She had about a million kids. She brought some of the neighbors kids with her as well. She talked of her sheep and her plans to show them at fairs this summer.

There was another dad from our town who spoke of his angora goats and his wife being a member of the fiber club. This is a local club that gets together to make mittens out of Yak fur. They have their spinning wheel and they literally spin wool straight from the sheep. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. This is an awful thought, but I couldn’t help thinking as they passed around pieces of different fur and the resulting sweaters, that if you hit L.L. Bean during their mid-winter clearance sale you can do really well, without the sweat. I am thinking that maybe I should keep that thought to myself.

As my husband and I are originally from the New York and Boston areas, there is a good chance that our family may not be the brightest shining stars of the 4H club, but we’ll see. One never knows. In fact, just last year when we were skiing with the kids, we noticed a big black animal way up in a tree. I pointed the little black bear out to the kids in my ski group. We all stood there admiring this little creature. Then one of the other children kind of cleared her throat and softly mentioned that she thought it was a porcupine. The children nodded in unison. It was an intellectual mutiny of eight-year-olds. After all, these were Vermont kids and they knew all about wildlife. Boy, did I feel like a dumb-dumb. I didn’t even know that porcupines could climb.

Apparently, hedgehog is another name for porcupine. As people in the 4H group were discussing sheep, goats, bunnies, and cows, one of the parents mentioned that her son had researched hedgehogs and was thinking of trying to raise one. They were legal in New Hampshire, and had just become legal in Vermont. They were actually a mini-version of the porcupine, pigmy hedgehogs from South Africa. Now there is something off the beat and path. How cool. This might be a good idea for our youngest son. Up until now, he had thought of himself as more of an Iguana man, but the hedgehog idea was exciting, too. We could actually feel the hedgehog momentum as more kids got interested in the idea. We exchanged phone numbers on our little green folders that we had been given and headed over to the table where all of the pamphlets were. There were cupcakes because it was the first because it was the first day. They had the 4H symbol on the top made out of green frosting.

As we were leaving, one of our menopausal dinner club members met me in the doorway and we discussed the idea of getting a hedgehog and their temperament. Hedgehogs apparently make good pets as long as they have a good temperament, otherwise they can bite. I don’t think this should be held against the hedgehog as when my temperament is out of sorts I can bite also. My fellow mid-lifer and I chuckled at the thought of getting a hedgehog in menopause, spontaneously releasing quills when she gets irritated or when the moon turns full.

We can only imagine what life would be like had the good Lord made women with quills. When our level of anger molecules reached a certain level we could release quills in every direction. Or we could learn to focus the energy generated by our dangerously high levels of anger molecules and target the recipient with a missile of menopausal quills. Advanced quill releasers would teach classes in order to improve on accuracy. They would sell bottles of organic poison next to the other organic supplements at the health food stores. We would pour the organic poison on our comb and run it through our quills. It would be good for up to twenty-four hours, however, for best results immediate use is best. They would work like a prickly stun-gun. During the holidays, when the very irritating new wife of our brother-in-law does that thing that she does that annoys everyone in the family, we would glance over the cranberry sauce with serious eyebrows. This is the warning glance. It is similar to how German Shepards show their teeth and growl. This is the warning to back up or be destroyed. If she so much as thinks about being irritated or entitled, we release, as we have no choice. We were forced. If our quills had been combed with organic poison, then our new sister-in-law would simply close her eyes and fall over. We now feel good about ourselves as we have done the rest of the family a service. They will be grateful to us. Men would envy our quills and fear them at the same time. Younger women would look forward to menopause, the life stage of self-actualization, power, and quills with organic poison. If menopausal women had quills, we would rule the world.

Go Back to Features.