There is a creature who lurks on the Western edges of Los Angeles.
This beast is so terrifying! So unrelenting! So singular of purpose! That he can only be called........SNOODZILLA!
Like his Japanese lizard-beast counterpart before him, Snoodzilla has but one mission in life, and that is the complete and merciless destruction of all he surveys. Due to the fact that this particular fiend has chosen to live in our home, my husband David and I (like panicked citizens of Toyko) can do little more than point helplessly at the rampage as we cower in his wake.
From the moment he first opens his eyes in the morning, a Snoodish campaign of terror commences. We awaken with each dawn's early light to the dulcet tones of the creature furiously shaking the bars of his crib, demanding his freedom. David and I stagger from bed and make our first futile attempts to appease him.
We lift him from his crib and find the poop is abundant. To get a better sense of what follows next, I urge you to now stop reading this blog, find a large and preferably rabid alligator, and then attempt to change its diaper.
* TIME ELAPSES *
It's not easy, is it? The best we can hope for is to achieve a complete wardrobe change without Snoodzilla
- leaping head-first from the changing table, and/or
- seizing the baby powder and using it as chemical warfare, and/or
- flinging his poop towards us like a rage-fueled monkey.
Assuming we have survived the above (I am not exaggerating when I say that I have TWICE left the changing table actually bloodied) Snoodzilla is now dressed and down on the ground. His small, yet hungry eyes, scan the room, searching for his first target of the day, usually the bookshelf. I pull David in front of me, attempting to use him as a human shield as "Goodnight Moon", "Googlie Farm", and "Touch and Feel Baby Animals" go whizzing by our heads.
Including a short break for his morning bottle, the bookshelf takes about six minutes to completely decimate. When he's sure that he's emptied it completely he sits briefly on the pile of fifty or so books, satisfied with the destruction he has wrought.
We've been awake for about fifteen minutes.
Not long after, David beats a hasty retreat to the office, leaving me alone with the Beast.
Snoodzilla's victory over the bookshelf seems only to have whetted his appetite for destruction. I dash out of his way as he makes a bee-line for the diaper basket. He crawls inside for maximum damage potential and soon neatly stacked diapers are being hurled in all directions. En route to the living room, where there are two more bookshelves to empty, he makes a pit stop to upend the laundry bin and spread our dirty drawers throughout the house. Then it's the playroom, where there are toy bins to be attacked without mercy.
Now, you may ask, "Why don't you just stop him?"
Well, let me ask you this? Why didn't those folks over in Toyko "just stop" Godzilla? I'll tell you why - because he is REALLY, REALLY SCARY - especially when you make him mad!!
So, instead I choose to stay out of the way until the spree of devastation has run its natural course. Knowing that, after thirteen hours or so, Snoodzilla will inevitably tire and collapse, I let him do his thing. After I've gotten him back into his crib for the night, I lie amidst the debris, exhausted.
David arrives home from work and I must assure him that NEVER FEAR - our home has not been ransacked by a gang of meth-fueled burglars, NOR have I accidentally detonated an unexploded WWII-era ordinance I found in the closet, it's just that...
...SNOODZILLA WAS HERE!
