Mr. Russell Pricklepants

I got a new roommate this past weekend. He's shy and sleeps all day and can get a bit prickly at times.

Behold: Mr. Russell Pricklepants.

There's obviously a back story to how this happened, so here it is (beware, it's a long one).

My sophomore year of college I took a multimedia art class. One of my projects involved using charcoal and newspaper print to create various rubbings. Once I gathered a collection of textures, I was instructed to use those to create whatever I felt like.

And that's where my projects usually go downhill. Giving me that much freedom tends to stress me out.

But somehow, I produced this.

And I am so proud of it, so it's been out on display in every place I've lived for the past 5 years.

I have no idea where the owl idea came from, but I will remind you that five years ago they were not popular. So when my friends did find some kind of owl novelty in a random store, they'd buy it for me.

And then owls became trendy.

And the gift buying didn't stop.

Now I can't completely blame my friends for my exploding owl collection.

I've bought some too.

But I'm pretty sure I could successfully prove that at least 85% of the total lot was given to me.

At least.

So I had to put a ban on the owl gifts. I love my friends and I love that they're so kind, but I had to draw the line at some point.

So they determined I needed a new animal to start a collection of. The platypus, flamingo, and hedgehog were all the big contenders.

The platypuses have not made an appearance yet (I looked up that plural. Apparently "platypi" is not colloquially correct).

However, I do have a handful of flamingos.

And even used it as inspiration for my Halloween costume.

But the hedgehog initiative gained some ground last November. At our quarterly ice cream party (oh, the perks of being an "adult"), the idea of getting me a pet hedgehog came up. Not thinking my friends would take me seriously (rookie mistake), I told them they could get me one for Christmas if they could even find one.

Apparently, they are no longer difficult to find. My friends had located a place to get one by the end of the evening.

Knowing that I wouldn't be able to back out of this, I convinced my friends to at least wait until after the busy holidays.

And then my friends all became busy, so the new pet acquiring kept getting pushed back.

And then I did something awful.

I did this.

When trying to put away some wine on top of my cabinet, I had a bottle of red wine cannonball onto my precious glass stove top. The $8 bottle of wine was unarmed, but my nearly new appliance didn't fare so well. Needless to say, I was verrrrrrrrry upset.

After calming me down and helping me get things sorted out, my friends determined getting me my new pet would be the much needed pick-me-up I could use.

And it totally is. Focusing on getting Russell settled in has been way better on my emotional well being than fretting over my savings-draining appliance repair.

Seriously. It's hard to be too upset when this guy's around to cheer you up.

Granted, once I finally get through the customer service line to figure out what I need to do to get the stove fixed, I may need to get an entire pet store. Cross your fingers that's not the case!