PS: The One Story You Should Never Tell A New Guinea Pig Owner

This anecdote was related to me by my editor Terry, who was reminiscing about the pair of guinea pigs her daughters had as children. When the girls moved into goth phases and decided it was time to concentrate on other things than four-footed rodents, the family gave the guinea pigs to a friend who was a kindergarten teacher. It seemed like a natural fit. Classroom. Kids. Guinea pigs. I mean, the whole set-up of the Noggin children's series "The Wonder Pets"--which, incidentally, features Lennie the Guinea Pig as one of its signing heroes--begins after-hours in a schoolroom. Well, one of the guinea pigs took one look at the classroom full of rapt little faces and expired on the spot. Yes, apparently guinea pigs are capable of spontaneous suicide under stress.
Just as an aside, did you know that if you enter "dead guinea pig" into google, the first page you get is this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070930114149AAjLbiG

Nothing in Love is Dirty

Tonight Mlle Cuddles and I were watching Tracey Ullman's "State of the Union" on Showtime (PS: there are amusing impersonations of everyone from Arianna Huffington to Rachel Maddow to Barney Frank, but you know, there's no substitute for LInda Granger or Ruby Romaine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q34Y01VyGow) Now, I don't know whether it was Tracey, the yogurt chip treat I was giving her, Alice standing by and licking her occasionally, or the visual stimulus of my bright orange track pants, but the end result was that Cuddles crapped and peed on me. But you know, whatever it was, she's running around her cage, whistling and eating hay, so who's to complain? Ask my sister told me long ago when my niece was a baby, you lose the ick factor really quickly.

Tinsel Town

When you have a new guinea pig, everyone wants to give you advice. (P.S.: Cayenne pepper? Not so effective). The latest advice came from my friend Stephen, who wanted to solve the continuing problem of Cuddles' stalker, Pablo. Since restraining orders don't work against black cats, Stephen suggested I try loosely covering the top of Cuddles' cage with tin foil. According to Stephen, cats don't like the feel of it on their paws. Well, apparently not. At first. But then the little kitty wheels started turning in Pablo's head. First he tilted his head one way, then another...and then he pushed the foil along with his nose until it fell off the lid.
So, in a glass half-full way, let's look at it this way: so what if my cat is still terrorizing my guinea pig from above? He's proven he's smarter than some of my community college students, who can't seem to find the reply buttons on their emails!

Pig and Pepper

One of my all-time favorite parts in Alice in Wonderland is the chapter entitled "Pig and Pepper," in which Alice visits the house of the White Rabbit, where she becomes embroiled in the domestic chaos of the kitchen, with a temperamental cook, the Cheshire Cat, and the Duchess displaying definitively bad parenting. After a rousing chorus of "Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy/And Beat Him When He Sneezes," Alice is left holding the baby, who morphs into a pig. (In an attempt to scoop Disney and Tim Burton—or at least glom onto the coolness, in what we in the cultural industry call synergy or cross-marketing—the British Film Institute has restored the first filmed version of Alice from 1903, which contains this very scene. (The nine minute version is on YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA)
The more relevant reference to "Pig and Pepper" is that tonight I've employed my friend John's home remedy for deterring Pablo's stalking behavior in regards to Cuddles: namely, to dissolve cayenne pepper in water and brush it over the surface of her cage. When Pablo goes to perch on the cage, he'll thus be in for a sneezy surprise--although, of course, given my own love of Louisiana and consequent heavy use of cayenne pepper in cooking, it would be no surprise if Pablo likes things a bit peppery. We'll see. Meanwhile, the link of the Alice movie is pretty cool, with a vaguely Erik Satie-ish score. And since it was posted by the BFI themselves, there's no guilt about watching it repeatedly and passing it along to your friends (unlike, say, anything made by our friends at Disney!).

Co-Existence

Despite the looming presence of Pablo late last night, shown dramatically in the past post, Cuddles managed to get out of her little hiding nest and eat a bit. It helped that I quarantined all other critters in my bedroom until about 3 AM, when their sighing, purring, shifting around and grumbling made me open the door. But happily this morning Cuddles' cage was intact, her hay was depleted and her little nose was twitching away.

He's Not Heavy; He's My Brother (Sort of)

This is what poor Cuddles has to put up with: an overbearing (literally) black cat sitting on her roof like some sort of vulture or evil Santa Claus, thinking about coming down the chimney. Luckily the cage lid holds. And luckily, Cuddles seems to have kept her appetite. Meanwhile, note that above the cage and to the right is a detail of Raychel Stine's The Confrontation(2007). Not only is Raychel an amazingly talented young painter, who burned up Dallas before going off to grad school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she's working up a storm; but she also has managed to make rats, ferrets, and dachshunds co-exist both in art and in life, no small feat. No wonder I put Cuddles' cage underneath her for inspiration.

The Players

ASTON
Six years old and some sort of schnauzer mix, Aston was born somewhere in Texas most likely and wound up at the SPCA in Dallas right around his first birthday, when I adopted him. He loves cow hooves, car trips, has a nervous stomach, likes to hog pillows, is afraid--among other things--of the dark, open spaces and most polished floors, and is the best behaved of all the animals. He has shown virtually no interest in Cuddles, although he did sniff her while she sat in my lap. One of his favorite things to do is play with Pablo. But will this mild-mannered pooch get in touch with his inner schnauzer exterminator after a little cavy influence?

ALICE
Don't be fooled by the fact that Alice likes to be ungroomed, was born in rural Oklahoma and bought at a Petland (yes, I know; they're the worst puppy mill ever). She's not white trash. Alice is pedigreed, papered, and pampered. This three year-old Westie rules the house, putting the "A" in "Alpha." Alice has never met a piece of furniture she didn't want to sit on or a stranger she didn't want to adopt her. She is known for barking, being selectively housebroken, and dancing on her hindlegs to get attention from everyone she sees. She, too, plays with Pablo and likes to groom him. Cuddles excites her tremendously and has been the recipient of a lick already. But be warned: Westies were bred to hunt vermin...can environment trump heredity?

PABLO
He's just about to turn two. He's long and lithe. He growls like a dog. And he's definitely fascinated by a four legged critter in a glass cage. That's Pablo, who was christened "Spencer" (ick) after being born into a litter at the SPCA in Dallas. Luckily, I adopted him and recognized his inner "Pablo"-ness, since "Spencer" is the name for a bad boyfriend, not a lucky black cat. Pablo enjoys sleeping on plastic bags, playing with the dogs, tricking the dogs, and apparently now watching Cuddles. But is this voyeurism friendly or feral?