When he first saw the parcel our daughter brought out with her from Montreal, the spousal unit started to laugh. "You guys got me a Barbie."

We didn't, but we had him pretty much convinced that it was a Pamela Anderson action figure, so when he actually opened the parcel ... but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, eh.

We celebrated the spousal unit's 49th birthday last night. It was actually Thursday, but we waited until our daughter could come home.

Saturday morning I hopped in the Marnmobile to drive into town to pick her up from the bus. I was motoring along the Scenic Highway when I caught this blur of brown out of the corner of my eye. No time to glance in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was riding my bumper. It was one of those adrenaline packed, foot jammed on brake, Oh Please Let Me Stop In Time And It Would Be Good To Not Be Turned Into Road Pizza By Some Dimwit Driving A SUV moments.

I was half sure I'd feel and hear the sickening crunch of deer hitting car and SUV simultaneously running over the Marnmobile like some sort of monster truck.

But I missed the critter and there was no one behind me.

And then I almost had a conniption because said critter wasn't a deer.

IT WAS A FREAKING LLAMA.

Someone near what used to be the Frenette place is keeping llamas and not keeping them well because the thing was running loose. It turned back towards the house and that's the last I saw of it.

So I headed on into town and I immediately had to tell the kid the big news. "Hey, guess what ran in front of the car?" She ran through a list of the usual suspects--deer, raccoon and then I told her it was something foreign. She gave up after emu.

Don't you just love it when people can't guess something?

She was suitably surprised when I said llama.

We motor home and I play the "guess what ran in front of me on the Scenic Highway" game with the spousal unit. He ran through a list of the usual suspects--and I told him it was something foreign. Out of thin air he picked the word "llama".

Oh, man, the guy is No Fun At All.

I would have started to wonder if he had psychic powers if he hadn't been so off base about his birthday present.

The big moment came, he unwrapped the present, and he just cracked up.

The spousal unit (top of his class in The William Shatner School of Acting and Unnatural Photographic Poses) is now the proud owner of A Potato Ricer.