Last night, I had an opportunity to spend some time with a few of my favorite Liberty students when Fish Hsu invited a couple of Varsity teammates over to her apartment for a taste of real Chinese cooking (she told us later that they toned it down considerably for our sheltered American palates).

One of the things that I LOVE about spending time with foreign exchange students is their English. They say the cutest things!

As we were sitting around Fish's living room, marveling over the flavor of several wondrous culinary inventions of whose ingredients we remain entirely uncertain, the topic of conversation turned to the furry little rodentian pet in the corner.

It was a chinchilla, one of those almost squirrel-like animals which were originally native to the Andes mountains in South America, and were presumably transported to the United States to serve as pets because of their exceeding cuteness or their general stupidity, both of which are endearing qualities.


Now, chinchillas very very soft, and rather touchable, and so pretty soon there was a crowd of curious college kids crowded around the cage...and a few of the rather curious college kids have a rambunctious side...so somewhere in the process, a pillow fight started, and the poor chinchilla's cage appeared as though it might end up in the mix.

It was at that point that Fish swooped in to rescue the chinchilla, carrying him off and locking him in the closet.

When she returned, she very solemnly informed us that chinchillas must not be badly frightened, or "they will become psychic!"

Poor Fish. She meant psycho.

She stood there looking mystified while the whole group howled with laughter until we couldn't breathe anymore. For the rest of the night, anytime someone mentioned a psychic chinchilla, it set the whole group off in fits, and Fish would just sit there shaking her head...