So, the guinea pig story is….we bought one, a white albino, about two weeks ago. We spoiled it rotten and loved it to death. Literally. It died 8 days later. Total drama, kids are screaming, DJ is praying to God to take him instead, the guinea pig is convulsing and dies on the way to the vet. I guess it will be funny soon, but it was pretty awful. Big take away from that is NEVER EVER buy pets from Petco. Once I got online and started researching guinea pig deaths, every single website (except Petco’s..shocker) said to never buy a guinea pig from them. They are usually sick and die within the first week. I’ll file that under things that would have been helpful to know two weeks ago. So anyways, the kids are so traumatized that at 4 AM that night I’m online searching for guinea pigs to adopt and find a shelter in San Mateo. This is sweet cuz that’s two minutes from my house. I call her the next day and she’s apparently adopted all of hers so she sends me to lady in Woodside. I email her, call her and pretty much stalk her and end up going to her house Thursday afternoon to look at them. Despite the pet hoarder appearance of her house she’s super sweet and the guinea pigs are all very well cared for and super healthy.
We play with a few and decide on Alejandro. But wait she says,” you can’t just adopt ONE. They are’ herd animals’ and we only adopt them in twos.” WTF?!! So now the kids are pulling on each leg “please mommy please” we have to get two! Which means bigger cage, more food and more poop. Did you know guinea pigs poop 150 times a day. Oh Yeah for me, I’m thinking, fucking great. But now that I’ve killed their first real pet I am guilted into agreeing to get two; because god forbid one gets ‘cavy depression’ because he is alone too long and needs guinea pig therapy. So we agree to sleep on it and drive the 35 minutes back to Belmont on the super windy road while the kids are now about to barf from car sickness. But it gets just a bit better, we are not technically supposed to have our cages outside, even though ours is in our attached garage. So now I have to buy a digital thermometer and install it in the garage so I can measure the average daily and nightly temperature over the next 5 days and show it to her to prove that it will not get too hot or cold for the guineas. Did I mention they poop 150 times a day??
So if I seem like I’m multi-tasking lately it’s because I’m programming the digital thermometer and trying to get it installed in my garage before the kids both have strokes so I can bring these things home by the weekend.
We’re getting Alejandro and Abigail. Who BTW, just had a guinea pig hysterectomy and has lost half her hair. This thing is so fugly but the kids are happy, did I mention the 150 yet?