If you've been following the naked mole rat saga and want to hear the happy ending, keep reading.
If you haven't been following the naked mole rat saga but want to know what the deal is and hear the happy ending, read this first and then keep reading.
If you could care less about the happy ending to the naked mole rat saga, then I don't know what to tell you. Check back later.
Finally, after nine months, closure!
I got this unexpected and touching e-mail today from Rochus, a naked mole rat enthusiast in Germany:
dear joolie,
it has been months since you started looking for a rubber
naked mole rat online and now, after this news has gone
around the world and back, and, more or less, so have i,
your Quest now may finally come to an end. (kind of sad,
ain't it?)
so. on friday, to naked mole rat lovers went to dresden
to visit their "godchildren" (being godfathers in this case
costs 20 euros a month for two naked mole rats in the
dresden zoo), accompagnied by a german tv crew that is right
now filming the last scenes for an upcoming documentary
about naked mole rats, the people who research them and
like them. (they came to our place here as well, but that's
a whole other, and quite long, story.)
so not only did that give us the chance to get a look behind
the scenes - i have posted some first pictures (not mine) of
our visit at my site:
http://heterocephalusglaber.de/?q=image/tid/23 -, and me to
actually hold a naked mole rat for a short moment (until
s/he got too anxious about the whole strange affair, camera
and that) but we were also tipped off that the zoo shop has
rubber naked mole rat. so, of course, i went and got one. and
got one more, for you, or rather, your friend.
now one of them is sitting on my monitor looking at me, and
the other on my desk, waiting to be shipped of the U.S.ofA.
(from whence it once came, before that having been produced
in china - but that, again, is seemingly quite a different
story and one i am not able to tell ;-) ).
so, let me know of any address or p.o.box or wherever you
like i could have it shipped to, to finally answer the desperate
call of a woman looking for a rubber animal.
life is weird, but isn't it quite lovely, too?
yours truly,
and a friend of naked mole rats:
rochus
I actually teared up a little bit when I read the last bit. What a sweetheart.
So anyway, I've e-mailed M.E., the original rubber naked mole rat seeker, with this news and am just waiting for her reply to get the delivery wheels in motion. Thanks to everyone for all their help and support, especially Rochus, the super super superhero of the day.