HI!!! This is purplebear’s daughter, BabyBlue. I came out of my room to see what on earth was going on?!?!?!?! (PBear was on the floor laughing so hard she is purple, really!) anyway, she let me read it (not that she had that much of a choice, being as she was on the floor)and so now I’m going to reply once. I feel bad for you, Mr. Wally. But if it makes you feel any better, you want to hear a woman’s scream? boy you ever see a cockroach flying (With PBear there) plug your ears and duck. Everyone can hear her scream!!! Of course, I’m not that much help, I hate the darn things too, but somebody loves me, because I’ve never seen one fly at me (at least not yet).
Laters,
Baby 
Blue
Assassins? Us?
We’re not the ones that murdered that poor little girl’s innocent gerbil, Mr. M7! We’re not the ones that said her new gerbil stood no chance against the cats. And we’re not the ones that bought her more cat food, in the guise of helpless goldfish!
What do you have against this little girl, anyway? Huh? Sheesh! All she did was try to show you her little gerbil!
Call us assassins, willya? Man!
I feel your pain, Wally. I hate anything small and furry, and I was repeatedly traumatized as a child when my brother’s gerbil escaped. Ewww.
On the WHY ME? subject: I was walking back to my dorm last week on this road/walkway that runs between the front of one dorm, Cumberland, and the side of another. Friends and I were talking about the story that a bunch of Satanists hung themselves on the (now abandoned and closed-off) fouth floor, and I was all weirded out. Well along comes a car that honks since we are blocking his way, and I shrieked to high hell and LEAPED over the little fence and into the front lawn of Cumberland, landing face down in the grass. My three friends screamed accordingly and two tripped over each other. The other one just stood there and screamed (he was harmonizing too, I guess).
I have no idea why I reacted the way I did! Horn honk/mass suicide - no connection. Jeez, I am still being teased about that. 
Once, I was at the house of a friend of my aunt’s. She happened to have some small, furry creatures - hamsters, gerbils, I know not what - and being 7 or 8, I decided to play with them. She did, in fairness, warn me that they could bite, and to be careful, but I played with them anyway. And then one of them bit me on the finger. Scared shitless, I jerked my hand out of the cage, RODENT STILL ATTACHED TO IT, and flung the poor beasty to the floor. I don’t know if it survived - I think it was still alive when we left. The woman was looking after her rodent while Aunt Peachie went and got a paper towel and some water for my poor bleeding hand with puncture wounds from small rodents which carry horrific diseases. My aunt and her friend haven’t spoken to each other since, and so I don’t know whether the little guy survived, but my finger’s fine, and in the end, I think that’s what counts, don’t you?
Wally, you poor darling. I absolutely sympathize with you. I have a fear of small rodents that people don’t believe. Even dead ones in traps. Anything smaller than a guinea pig is OUT OUT OUT. And what happened to you is exactly what I fear. That it will startle or bite me and I’ll throw it or drop it, causing untold damage. That it was the pet of a child is even worse. A pox on all the cruel bastards who laughed at you!!!
We have not met yet, but I have to say you have my sympathy. What a tragic (but humorous) story. I think I may have wet myself laughing!
I would like to say here that I have been enjoying the special sigs attributed to you.
the blueslady
I am deeply disgusted and appalled (stifled chuckle) by the flargrant cruelty (choked guffaw) shown here to a respected poster (audible snicker) who overcame ovewhelming physical odds just to (hanky over face, mopping tears of laughter) who coincidentally suffered the indignity (choked gulp) of traumatizing a toddler (honking bray of laughter) by slaughtering her rodent-pet in a ceiling fan.
::gusts of helpless, snorting, tears-down-the-face, hooting, side-splitting laughter; the Teeming Millions fall off chairs, roll on the floor, clutch their sides and wail with uncontrollable hilarity; wheezing and whooping, killed with laughter and unable to stop::
Umph. Yes. Wally, we feel your pain.
(onlookers relapse into wailing, pants-wetting hilarity)
Oh, heckers, this just truly sucks, but it’s also the damned funniest thing I’ve read in a long, long time.
Hey, big guy, sounds like you’re BACK.
Rock on.
Veb
C’mon, Wally. Tell us how the gerbil really died?
I heard it involved duct tape and a spent paper towel roll.
P.S. Get your ass over to my not-so-superhero thread. Probably on page 10 by now. It has “Wally” screaming all over it.
(Don’t make me post a link. To me, a computer is just a typewriter with a TV that doesn’t get any good stations.)
Reply #1: Wally, that’s the pits. You were trying to do a good deed, and it resulted in the tragic death of an innocent gerbil, in front of a sweet impressionable child. I’m sorry, honey, that sucks. But it really isn’t your fault, just a sad sequence of events. You’ve done all in your power to make it right.
Reply #2: Wally, get your butt on that magnificent bike of yours and head south. Maybe forever.
Ellele,
Yeah, but if I meet up with you, babe, I may never want to come back.
Update:
The kid came to my door last night, and in an accussatory tone said, “The goldfish are dead.”
Is there some kind of indestructable pet I could buy for this kid and get her off my back?
Perhaps something from a taxidermist?
Cheer up, Wally. Sue can’t keep her fishies, either.
::ducks and runs::
Buy her a Rottweiler. But don’t complain to me when that dog shows up at your doorstep whining about a dead girl 
You might as well just give up and become the nasty-old-man neighbor Wally.
Heaven knows, you seem to be having some trouble being the nice-old-man-next-door.
Wally, once again, you have brightened my morning with your amazingly bad luck.
And who brings a gerbil into the backyard, anyway?
Wally - the neighborhood’s Angel of Death.
Does that weird vocal music like from “The Omen” start playing when you walk into the pet store?
Thanks, Wally. My co-workers think I’m insane.
Actually, they already thought I was insane, but now with the addition of uncontrollable giggle fits, they are seriously thinking of having me committed.
Maybe you should buy her a plant…
Sigh. My God, Wally.
Suggestion: Give the poor next-door girl a turtle or an armadillo, or something nigh-on indestructable.
And whatever you do, don’t get her a possum. You’ll be buying her other pets for the rest of your life.
(I’m still trying to get the “What if there was a ceiling fan?” image out of my head. Oh, dear Lord…)
Oh no.
My three-year-old just asked me why I was laughing so hard. “Because a friend of Mama’s…just did something very funny.” She’s only three. That’ll do for now.
I’m sorry, Wally, but I’ve gotta go with what Veb said, right down to the pants-wetting. You know I love you, but this is just too funny.