By Verna Davis
TERRE HAUTE — The first time I ever heard of a shrew was years ago when my husband and I lived in Southern Illinois. We were eating lunch with our good friends Jerry and Faye Aiken. When Faye was putting the finishing touches on lunch, Jerry was entertaining us with a tale about a shrew he had cornered in the corner of his garage. When he finished, I asked, “What’s a shrew?” Jerry said that a shrew was a tiny creature that looked like a mouse with a pointed nose and a much shorter tail. I should have known Jerry, a notorious joker, was setting me up. But I didn’t recognize the signs, and foolishly, I walked right into his trap. “What’s a shrew eat?” A big grin spread across Jerry’s face as he answered, “Shrewded wheat.”
Well, after that day, I didn’t think I’d ever have to know anything more about a shrew. That was until last week when something moved under the corner of my garage as I was taking out the trash. Something alive was under that pile of leaves. Something I’m sure I didn’t want to be there. Sure enough, as I stood and stared, two little creatures scurried out from under their hiding place. One went into a hole alongside the foundation of the garage, and the other, for some odd reason, sat at the edge of the pavement and started a staring contest with me. It was the weirdest looking thing — sort of like a mouse, only not really. It had a pointy nose, and a shorter tail, smaller body, and rounder shape than a mouse. But those beady eyes were the same as on a mouse, and it was those eyes that were my undoing. I let the ugly little thing win the staring contest. I screamed and that little shrew and I ran in opposite directions. I’m not sure who was faster! I had just had my first nose-to-snout encounter with a shrew, and I was not happy.
In typical fashion, I went straight to the Internet to see how I could rid myself of the shrewish shrews, humanely of course. I soon discovered that shrews have this ridiculously high metabolism rate and eat 80-90 percent of their body weight every day. (Is it morally repugnant to be jealous of the eating habits of a such a small creature?) Eight hours without food can literally starve a shrew to death. (Been around a teenager lately?)
But even worse than all that is what I learned about a shrew’s reproduction system. Without going into too many details (this is a family newspaper after all), a typical shrew litter is five to seven shrewettes — and a female shrew can have up to 10 litters a year! That means I could have hundreds of the little creatures living in, under, around, beside my garage, which is dangerously close to my house!!!
Honey, stop leaving out all that shrewded wheat!
So much for the four-legged shrew. Most of us are familiar with the two-legged shrew. Shakespeare wrote about her in The Taming of the Shrew. She was a quick-tempered, selfish, nagging, rude, hostile, scolding woman who was prone to violence, especially the violence inflicted with her sharp tongue. Unfortunately, I know a two-legged shrew or two. Even more unfortunately, at times I’ve been a bit shrewish myself.
I suspect there is a bit of a shrew in all of us, male and female alike. With our pointed noses, we sometimes seek out things to talk about that are none of our business. With our beady eyes, we look around for someone doing something we don’t like so we can discuss it all with other shrews just like ourselves. The works of our shrew-like tongues is even more prolific than the shrews living around my garage, for the gestation period on spreading gossip is usually less than 17-32 minutes.
Please Lord, forgive us for the damage we do with our shrewish natures. Help us remember the words of Proverbs 13:3: “He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.” Lord, help us also remember the indicting words You gave us in James 1:26: “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.”
Let’s stop eating all that shrewded wheat!
Verna Davis may be reached at vrdspeaks@yahoo.com.
