It started innocently enough

I was on my deathbed, suffering in quiet, dignified silence, when in charged The Mrs.

The Mrs.: "I gave MaxieC a choice."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, bully for you."

The Mrs.: "[sigh] I told him he had a choice between a birthday party and getting his very own pet."

Me CherkyB: "Grate."

The Mrs.: "Yeah. He really wants his very own pet."

Now, this is certainly true. He has been whining about how many pets HannahC has, and how she never lets him play with any of them, and so he needs his very own pet. Though, that very morning we had gotten up to find Tiny, the leopard frog, splayed out on a rock and moving remarkably little for a frog that is still a member of the living. We laid her to rest in a nicely-lined (with paper towels) cardboard mail-order contact lens box which we unceremoniously tossed into the garbage can in the garage because HannahC decided she didn't want to go through all the bother of burying her, since she was dead.

Me, CherkyB: "I thought you had said he was too young to get his own pet."

The Mrs.: "We'll find something that he could have. And I really don't want to organize a party."

Me, CherkyB: [clearly delirious from all the death-bed-lying] "I saw in the paper yesterday that the humane society had a two year old guinea pig named Elvis available. Guinea pigs are pretty sturdy."

The Mrs.: "Yeah, but how long do they live? Like two years?"

Me, CherkyB: "I dunno. Lemme see...[sound of typing google search]...five years."

The Mrs.: "Woweeee!!!!! Soooper Dooooper!!!!!!! Do you think they still have him? Do you think they're open? Do you think they have any other guinea pigs? What are their hours? You're well enough to do this today, aren't you?"

Me, CherkyB: "[type type type] Here's Elvis on the web page. Says the info was updated 10 minutes ago. And they have two female guinea pigs named Fluffy and Cinnamon, too."

The Mrs.: [bouncing up and down like a kid waiting to see Santa Claus] "Oh oh oh oh! Get ready to go!"

Me, CherkyB: "OK, but I'm not driving. I'm sick. You can drive your own minivan, right?"

The Mrs.: "[gasp] But it might snow! I hate driving in the snow!"

Me, CherkyB: [looking at the sky, noting absence of threatening weather] "If it snows, we'll take the truck. And I'll drive."

I took a shower and got dressed, cuz being in your deathbead is stinky work. Then we headed off to the humane society. When we got there, they had the rodents all set up right in the reception room by the front door, and we learned that Cinnamon and Fluffy were a "bonded pair" and could only be adopted as a pair. But the lady assured The Mrs. that guinea pigs are much happier in pairs than alone.

So we sat in the greeting room and played with Elvis for a while. Then we played with Cinnamon and Fluffy, and HannahC claimed Fluffy as her very favoritest in the whole world. MaxieC, however, preferred Elvis because he was a boy. The Mrs. preferred the girls because girl rodents are easier to deal with than boys, plus they do beter in pairs, plus if we got only one, it would be clear that HannahC would never let MaxieC play with it. So we spent the next 20 minutes trying to convince MaxieC that he wanted two guinea pigs instead just the one.

And we failed.

So then we said to bring Elvis back to us one more time, and Elvis refused to come out of his cage. He hid inside a little Habitrail tube. So they brought the tube with Elvis inside and handed him to us. He refused to come out. So we pounced. "Look, MaxieC. He's not very friendly. If you got him, he'd never want to play with you. The other ones came right out and were a lot friendlier. Do you want a pet that won't let you play with it?"

I'll let you guess which is Cinnamon and which is Fluffy.


Clowning around with his new pet. The one HannahC lets him play with.


One of the troubles with Fluffy is I can never tell which end is which. You can see in this picture that there's a triangular ear kind of in the middle of the hair at the top end. If there are ears, that's the head end.



Getting new pets at the humane society is just the start of the investment. $200 later, we're all set up.