What's in Your Closet?

"Mom, how did you manage to hide the guinea pig from your dad for all that time?"
Um, guinea pig? You mean Flip, the one that we hid in our closet? For four months?
Until the day Flip climbed out of his box, laid next to the heat vent and uh, flopped?
I was so sad when Flip flopped.

I am thinking of all of this, but I have just woken up, and it will take me a good ten minutes before I can even attempt an explanation. If I want to attempt an explanation. Sweet N is staring at me, waiting for an answer. So, I just answer her the best I can at this current, sleep deprived moment, "Who said I hid a guinea pig from my dad?"

Did I tell her this?
Did Caca tell her this?
Did I mention this in front of her after a few Mikes Hard Lemonades?
I really need to stop drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade talking.
Because I really don't want her to think it's OK to hide guinea pigs from your parents. In your closet or anywhere else.
And I really don't want her to think that I purposely hid a guinea pig in my closet.
Even though I did.
But Caca was nine years older than me, so really she was the one responsible for hiding the guinea pig in the closet, right?
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

N gives me some non committal answer. "Um, you told me? I think. Didn't you? Or maybe Caca? I don't really remember..."
She is so good at these non-committal answers. I wonder where she gets it.

I think of telling her that it was Caca who hid the guinea pig. That would get me off the hook.
Or maybe this is a teachable moment, and I should confess that Caca and I did hide the guinea pig, but it was wrong, and not something we ever should have done. I'm not sure I'd sound really convincing though, since I still think it's really freakin funny that we hid a guinea pig from our father for four months.

I think of telling her that, in our case, it was easy, because our dad had so much on his plate, that scoping out our closet wasn't really on his To Do List.
Then I think I should clarify that our closet was the big walk-in kind, unlike hers, which would never be big enough to hide a guinea pig and its stench, should she ever get the urge to try it.
I think maybe I should tell her that our childhood was just a little different from hers, and we could do things like hide guinea pigs in our closet for four months without trying all that hard.
I think of how our dad looked shocked, and then laughed, when he found out a year later that we had hid a guinea pig in our closet for four months.

I think of how my childhood closets went from hiding guinea pigs, to cigarettes, to beer, to boxes that I couldn't wait to pack.
I think of my closets now, which hide Easter baskets, and birthday presents, and clothes I still tell myself I will wear again some day.
I think of their closets, which hide the few baby clothes I can't bear to get rid of.

I am thinking about all of this, but instead I say, "I think it was in a closet. Which reminds me, isn't it time you cleaned yours?"

She no longer wants to talk about guinea pigs. Or her closet.

Which could never hide a guinea pig.

Because I will be searching it weekly until she is twenty-seven.