The Zoo Shirt Saga

Those of you who know Gabel well will know that she has a zoo shirt. It's a big baggy Tshirt with a big print on the front of tons of different animals. She loves wearing it when she's lounging.
I hate it.
Hahaha.
Well hate is a strong word. Mostly I thought it was dorky and it just became the joke that I hate it.
My suspicion is that upon learning of my dislike of the zoo shirt, Gabel started wearing it more and more. And of course she brought it to England with her. Just taunting me.
So I did the only logical thing I could think of. I stole it in our second week here.

This was meant to be a short lived prank but it just got so funny I kept it going. I placed it in obvious site on the floor of my closet, right next to my printer paper which she has periodically gone to get. She never noticed her beloved zoo shirt beside the paper. Occasionally she would ask me if I had the shirt and I always denied it. This would leave her grumbling around the house for a few minutes going "WHERE IS MY ZOOOOO SHHIIIRRRTTT!" But then I wouldn't hear about it for days, as if she had accepted her fate.

Then a couple weeks ago, she lost her black lulu lemon sweater and this promptly led her to form the hypothesis that there was a goblin living in hiding in our flat who would come and steal her clothes. I obviously found this hilarious and whenever me or Steph had temporarily misplaced something, she would shout out, "it's the goblin who has my zoo shirt and sweater!"

I confided my hilarious prank to her sister Jen and we came up with the plan that around Christmas I should write a blog entry that solely stated the zoo shirts' whereabouts to see if she would discover it on her own. I was so excited! But then something happened I hadn't taken into account.

Katherine Gabel arrived and Gabel almost immediately took to whining to her mom about her lost zoo shirt. While Gabel had been quiet about it for weeks, she suddenly thought about it every day and kept bringing it up woefully. Steph kept telling me to give it back but it had gone on for so long at this point I didn't know what to do. Finally last weekend, Katherine went into momma bear mode and was determined to find it for her daughter. I overheard the two of them moving around the bed to find it and they scoured the room. When we went out shopping, Gabel pointed out this hideous smurfs Tshirt and said she wanted to buy it as a replacement for her zoo shirt. I narrowly escaped that disaster and realized I was in a pickle.

I texted Jen and she told me I had to give it back. Her exact words were "You brought in kgabes....that's game over because she won't stop till it's found." Jen suggested I hide it somewhere else and let her stumble upon it but that wouldn't work because there aren't any suitable places in our flat that hasn't already been inspected in the zoo shirt frenzy.

So finally last Saturday night I revealed that I had the zoo shirt. Katherine started laughing and Gabel let out a shriek of rage and went running to my closet. Of course she came back down to the living room wearing it and had barely taken it off since. In fact, I'm almost certain she's worn it at some point every day for the past week. I might have to steal it again! So I'm sorry everyone back home, but for now the zoo shirt lives on. For now...