Pigged Out

There will come a day when your children will want a guinea pig for a pet.  They will have seen Bolt, or love The Wonder Pets, or even the upcoming G-Force starring some pretty amazing digitally spawned g. pigs sporting gun belts and space gear.  You will wonder if it's a good time to get them a pet.  Pets teach responsibility and every one of us remembers our childhood charge named Buttercup or Snowball or Rick... yes, I had a fish named Rick, because why are the Ricks, Randys and Jims underrepresented in the pet world?

Regardless, you'll consider it.  Guinea Pigs are so fluffy and squeaky and really more the size of a small cat than a rodent.  They do things like "popcorn" and "wheak"; these habits sound ever-so-darling and sure to entertain your kids for hours, right?

WRONG!

Guinea pigs suck a**.  If you're a member of the Guinea Lynx Society (real thing) or from Peta, save it.  No tiny mammal lives as well as my guinea pigs, but every morning I wake up I hope is their last day on earth.  They stink.  They throw, physically, with their little clawed hands, heaps of pine shavings and straw from their cage.  They eat their poo.  They pee every twenty-seven seconds.  They have to have a little hay stall on the side of their cage so their teeth don't grow into their brain.  (And yes, I've thought of that, but because I believe in a higher power, I can't be a willing accomplice to anything that will bring me hellfire and damnation in the afterlife.  When they go, it has to be nature's call.)  They eat a salad comprised of fresh spinach, red leaf lettuce, garden carrots and perhaps a sprig or two of basil each day.  They eat alfalfa pellets, but they don't like the cheap kind with the round add-in that resembles dog kibble.

We've upped the ante on the pigs' head.  It used to be we'd adopt a kitten when they turned belly up, but now we've promised a puppy.  Seriously, two dogs has to be better than these little neurotic balls of allergens.  Did I mention their traumatized?  We adopted them from the shelter and apparently their last owner beat them into submission and then made them think it was their fault.  They winced at sounds for the first year we had them, though now they only wince when I cut their hair.

That's right, I cut their hair, bathe them in rodent shampoo, and clip their gnarly little fingernails.  The above picture is today after I did my best with the craft scissors.  They twitch all over when I groom them causing their cute Jennifer Aniston shags to resemble an angry teenage hatchet job.

My daily prayer is that the Lord will call his furry servants home.  If not, someone will deem me unfit and come take them into guinea protective services.