posted
This has nothing to do with Lyme disease- except that writing is part of my therapy and this is a true story.
Chapter One-Sex Ed 101
My daughter , Carolyn, is an animal lover, so for her 10th Birthday, December 25, by the way, we gave her two baby guinea pigs-both females. She named them Pumpernickle and Butterscotch and took very good care of them.
Since my girls were preteens at the time and soon to have "The Talk", I thought this might be a good opportunity to have a lesson in animal husbandry. Carolyn was also interested in Pumpernickle and Butterscotch having babies,so I suggested she save up her money to get a male guinea pig.
By Spring she had enough for us to go to the local pet store to buy "Mr. Sam". It was quickly evident that this lesson in animal husbandry was going to be a success. I mean, why talk about such things when it can be so easily illustrated.
The timing was perfect, at the beginning of summer vacation it was clear that both Pumpernickle and Butterscotch were about to deliver. We waited in eager anticipation...
[ 15. July 2006, 11:14 PM: Message edited by: Carol B ]
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tabbytamer
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It was a dark and stormy night. As we stepped into the foyer , my friend cried "EWWWWW, Why are you breeding RATS ?" I was highly offended because these were not rats , they were guinea pigs, and this was the glorious event- Pumpernickle had obviously given birth-and we had missed it !
The rest of the family quickly assembled around the cage which was perched on the radiator at the bottom of the stairs. As we peered into the cage trying to make a count of the babies, my friend just kept mumbling EWWW, grabbed the book she had come to borrow and fled.
Our excitement was somewhat tempered by the fact that, although the new mother was tending to three adorable wriggling babies, there also appeared to be three more dead baby guinea pigs hidden in the wooden house.
Wanting to increase the odds of survival and give Pumpernickle her own maternity ward, we decided to make a run to the local pet store for enough supplies to set up a separate cage.
My mother, hearing the commotion , and wanting to be part of the blessed event, hopped onto the Chair Glide installed on the stairs and slowly made her way down till she was sitting just two feet from the cage. The expression on her face mirrored our own feelings of joy at witnessing the miracle of birth.
Feeling a need to make things a bit more tidy in the cage I grabbed a shallow, flat cardboard box, scooped out the bloody straw, three dead baby guinea pigs and placed it out of the way on top of the cage.
We put on our raincoats for the trip to the store, leaving my mother sitting peacefully on the chair glide, gazing contentedly at Pumpernickle and her new family. I turned for one more look at this scene of serenity and shut the door...
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Carol B
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Chapter Three-Flying Dead Baby Guinea Pigs
The fact that it was raining did not dampen our excitment because we were on a mission to make life more comfortable for our dear Pumpernickle and her offspring.
Returning home I was surprised to see my mother sitting on the front porch, and she wasn't looking too happy. As I got closer I could see there were bits of bloody straw stuck in her hair.
She had a scowl on her face, and all she said was -"you can clean it up". When I opened the door to look in the foyer I saw it was indeed a mess. There was this bloody straw strewn all over the place. The cardboard box lay upside down in the middle of the floor. One dead baby guinea pig lay across the newell post. One was hanging off the radiator, and another one was splat on the floor.
So, for the second time, I gathered the remains of my bright idea to introduce my kids to the facts of life. This time ,however, I put everything into a large brown paper grocery bag,rolling the top over carefully to seal it.
I learned from my mother, when she had recovered enough from the shock, that as soon as I had shut the door, our cat had come running down the stairs, and bounded up to the top of the cage, flipping the cardboard box with such force that three dead baby guinea pigs went FLYING.
Apparently the one laying across the newell post had deflected off my mother's face...
Chapter Four-An Improper Burial
[ 18. July 2006, 07:14 AM: Message edited by: Carol B ]
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lymemomtooo
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Thanks Carol, I really needed some diversion about now..Someday I will tell you the story of my thoughts on how to neuter a male, fancy European Mouse that was over procreating, and impregnating every other furry thing within his reach.
Posts: 2360 | From SE PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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tabbytamer
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quote:Originally posted by Carol B: So, for the second time, I gathered the remains of my bright idea to introduce my kids to the facts of life.
Well, I'm not quite 50, but I'd say this story is a pretty good lesson of how life can throw stuff at you when you least expect it
trueblue
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posted
Carol ~ Is it time for Chapter 4, yet?
*waits patiently, not*
But I am thankful for never having any flying guinea pigs bounce off me. (bad enough there was a snake in my screen porch the other night).
I wish I could tell a story like you. Thanks.
-------------------- more light, more love more truth and more innovation Posts: 3783 | From somewhere other than here | Registered: May 2005
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Carol B
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Chapter Four- An Improper Burial
Inspite of the soggy night ,I felt a certain amount of urgency about getting these babies in the ground and on their way to heavenly clover. Carolyn designated the spot where my husband should start digging, which he did post haste- I say that because he used a post hole digger-which makes for a rather narrow hole.
When I brought the brown paper ,environmentally friendly, grocery burial bag out it was immediately apparent that it was not going to fit.
"Get a smaller bag" he said. "Dig a bigger hole" she said. "Get a smaller bag" he said. "DIG A BIGGER GD HOLE" she said.
Fearing that this little discussion was going to get out of hand, one of the girls darted into the house and quickly came back out with a smaller brown paper, environmentally friendly, lunch bag. By now it was nearly dark-and still raining.
Somehow the transfer from bigger bag to smaller bag didn't go as planned. I could tell this by the splashing plop I heard as all three dead baby guinea pigs landed on the ground. "I am NOT picking those things up again" I declared.
Not wanting to traumatize our girls any further, my husband got down on his hands and knees,in the dark, patting around on the ground for the bodies of the deceased, carefully placing them in the lunch bag. To heck with the straw, it would make good mulch.
Finally the burial sack was lowered into the hole, and Carolyn, as best she could,was the first to scrape some of the dirt on top of it. We all took our solemn turns with the shovel.
I'm not sure what he was thinking, well yes, I do know what he was thinking,-he was thinking "pack it down", but his timing wasn't quite right. I watched, unable to say or do anything , as my husband took a step back, another step forward for momentum, and proceeded to jump on the grave with both feet.
Horrified, Carolyn lunged forward , batting him about the head and yelling at him to get off Pumpernickle's babies. She had carefully made a grave marker from a brick, on which she had inscribed-"Here lies Brownie,Snuffy, and Merckle. On Earth a short while, but loved forever"
With the brick in place, we stood around the grave, holding hands, reciting the Lord's Prayer, in a gentle rain, releasing these sweet souls to fly once again.
Butterscotch needed an emergency caesarean to save her life. Apparently her hips were too narrow to deliver, and we had waited too long before figuring out she was in trouble.
I was driving to the ZOO to pick up Carolyn from camp when I got the call from the Vet explaining this to me- and asking if they should just put Butterscotch down or perform the operation?
I asked a crucial question.
Do you take Master Card?
They asnwered Yes, and although I didn't like the equation of spending 250 dollars on a 7 dollar guinea pig I told them to go ahead with the operation.
It made picking up Carolyn to tell her the news a lot easier though. As she put it in the car on our way back to the vets-How can you put a pricetag on a family member's life??????
I was feeling kind of foolish in the waiting room, spending so much moola on a rodent-until someone walked in with a mouse (!) who was having their tail operatied on. Helped to put things in perspective.
Butterscotch made it through the operation okay, but all eight of her babies had died . In fact they had already started to "dissolve" in the womb.
We found this out when we were about to leave with Butterscotch and instructions for her continued care, when a vet tech walked out with a small cardboard box- and said " Here, these are yours,too, but they're a little squishy"
We took them home to bury them.
So my plans to educate the girls about sex became a lot more involved than I had anticipated. One unexpected side effect though is the fact Carolyn, now 15, walks about from time to time saying " I am never going to have kids. I am NEVER going to have kids!"
Parents- we do our best, but sometimes our good intentions just go flying right out the window.
posted
Tabbytamer-I think guinea pigs make for good pets,too.
We call ours the Weep Weeps because of the way they talk to us. We still have two in a hutch on the front porch. Several generations removed from the original family.
Eventually Pumpernickle died of old age. Carolyn was away on a mission trip. Since I wanted her to have the chance to say goodbye , I put Pumpernickle in an empty Market Day Chicken Pot Pie box and stuck her in the freezer for safe keeping.
But then I forgot about her-until one night I was in a hurry to fix something for dinner and pulled out the box.
Three of us had a screaming round robin we were so shocked at finding a frozen guinea pig in the box. I didn't know what to do, so I closed the lid and stuck her back in the freezer -where she stayed until my husband grabbed her about a week later.
His surprise was a bit more subdued. But he immediately went outside and grabbed a shovel to bury her. She now rests in peace in our memorial garden.
tabbytamer
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I'll never look at a chicken pot pie quite the same way.
Reminds me of a recent experience we had:
A while back, we noticed our son (the critter keeper), upon coming home from a long day of work and after changing into his PJs, would come out and place this new ceramic-type gadget he got into the microwave.
He would stand there while it was heating up. Then remove it and go to his room.
Lately he had been into aroma therapy a bit. And we assumed he was heating up some aroma oils of some sort for relaxation.
Anyway, he would do this ritual about once a week. Seemed to be around the end of the work week.
One day, he had left his ceramic oil warmer atop the (portable) dishwasher. When I went to move the dishwasher to the sink, accidently my hand caught the lid to the oil warmer, flipping it onto the floor and breaking the lid in two.
I felt terribly. Here our son had found a way to unwind after a long week. A very sensible, adult solution, in my opinion. (As opposed to turning to excessive alcohol, etc.). Now I was going to have to break the news to him when he came home. I was hoping this item was not too hard to replace.
Picking up the base of the warmer, I turned it over to see if perhaps it had a sticker indicating where it was purchased, price, etc.
"Yes! There is a sticker! Maybe it is from a local store," I thought to myself. Planning to run out and get a replacement before our son arrived home, I strained to read the fine print above the UPC label bar code. It read:
posted
That is too funny- does he have a pet snake by any chance ?
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tabbytamer
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Yep. Snake, and various reptiles.
Needless to say, I no longer felt the obligation to run out and replace the device. Especially after I discovered where he was keeping the frozen mice.
I once gave my friend April, a gift for her birthday. Not knowing what possessed me to do so, I went to the pet store and purchased a hamster for her as a present.
I gleefully gave her the gift, and immediately noticed her mother's look of disdain etched upon her face. My gift was not well received.
About two days later, I received a phone call demanding that I come over to April's house. No explanation was given other than there was "trouble" with the hamster and that I would know what to do.
I immediately got on my bicycle and rode as fast as I could, just in case the hamster required a medical rescue of some sort and I could save the day.
When I arrived however, my own face became etched with dismay. The living room couch that was normally sitting on all fours was strangely tipped skyward, and pulled away from the wall, with its dust cover bottom slashed open.
As you can imagine, I was the one they solicited to reach into the darkest depths of the sofa to retrieve the "gift", right along with its I think four newly born babies, in their nest their mother had made in the sofa, right after she had escaped from both her cage and their cat, the night before.
I don't know what ever happened to the hamster or her babies, but I no longer saw my friend after that, and its my guess they did not meet the same fate as the flying babies, but hopefully they ended up back in the pet store, not to be given as "gifts".
I have never liked chicken pot pies either. I did once put a carp I had caught into my friend's mother's freezer (at my friend's suggestion) and when she opened the freezer we heard a blood-curdling scream which of course we laughed at, cold heart-less youngins that we were....
As for sex-ed, I showed my kids a movie by NOVA, "The miracle of birth". They to this day walk around saying, "I'm NEVER having children". So no matter the source, you'll always feel like you did the "wrong" thing as far as teaching sex ed 101 to them.
www.LymeLeague.com"Together We Grow Stronger" Posts: 139 | From A tiny little home office in the middle of Wisconsin | Registered: Feb 2005
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tabbytamer
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Why PJ, didn't they know that that's the best gift of all? The gift that keeps on giving?
As far as sex ed, we had bunnies. Problem was, if you blinked, you missed the lesson.
posted
I have thoroughly enjoyed this and have been laughing out loud. My family thinks I'm nuts.
Of course, its extra funny because I thought I was the only mom who runs up vet bills for a hamster that we got at a pet store closeout for $2.00. The little thing was so cute but had mites.
Instead of infesting the whole house we had to take him for shots!!! and then oral treatment that we had to force down his throat with a tiny syringe.
At the point that my husband realized that I had been paying $25 a pop vet bills for the hamster he just said. Hmmmm.......2 dollar hamster .......100 dollar vet bill?
That story often gets told at gatherings but I was the hero in my daughters eyes for getting her pet treated!
Glad to meet you!
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