Guinea Loaf and Other Rodent Mishaps

I already spoke about Frodo the Gerbil and how terribly that went. 

Well, a few of the other pets accidentally led to traumatic events as well. 

We had two mice, for example.  One was grey and one was tan.  They were adorable and tiny and I remember very little about them aside from the death of the grey one.

You see, the mouse was in my hand at the time of her demise. 

I didn't do anything to kill her, but I certainly felt like it was my fault as she spazzed around and had a tiny mousey seizure. 

My friend was there that day.  She told me to put her down and in my panic, I placed the mouse on top of the cage. 

On the one hand, I doubt dying on a metal grid was more comfortable than dying on my hand. 

On the other, she was probably too busy heading towards that mousey light at the end of the rodent tunnel to give a damn.

The second mouse died soon after, and I always assumed it was due to loneliness.  

 EDIT: "Oh dear.  Could you feel it's little mouse heart stop beating?"-My mom.  

She immediately regretted asking this, but what the fuck, Mom?  Who asks that??

I also had two hamsters.  I think they were dwarf hamsters specifically, and no, I didn't have them at the same time.  However, neither one lasted very long.

I believe they were "Grim" and "Grim 2" respectively.

Hamsters are delicate creatures. 

No, I didn't smoosh them or anything like that.

As it turns out, they don't always travel well.  Most people have no problem with this.  They go from the pet store to the car to the home and everything is fine.

Some hamsters are not so fine.

When mine started shitting himself, we took him to the vet.   The vet explained that the stress of moving occasionally makes hamsters have diarrhea, and often this is incurable. 

…

Kay.

So my hamsters shat themselves to death. 

The mouse was still worse. 

This post, however, is meant to talk mainly about the guinea pigs in my life. 

They will clearly one day evolve into tribbles.

We've had many. 

Heidi:

She used to ride in my Barbie convertible too.

Bunny:

...Apparently, guinea pigs substituting for my Barbies was a thing.

There was Furball, Silky...

I even made a plush guinea pig in school:

Hmm.  I'm not entirely sure where the other ear went.  

Oh well. 

Along the line of this long list of rodents, two guinea pigs were mine, so of course they were the ones to suffer really awful deaths that I could do nothing to stop.

'Cause, you know, my life.

One was named Theodore Edward Bear, or just Ted E. Bear because I was super clever. 

When he had a tumor removed, (which took up most of his body because he was a freaking guinea pig) the hair never grew back and the scar was enormous.  So, he became "Frankenpig"

None of us seem to remember the name of the other one.  He was smooth and brown.  I think I used to call him Poopie because of that, but I'm sure he had another name. 

In any case, my mother called him a "she" up until the day he died, which was only problematic because he died from a piggy version of testicular cancer. 

It got to the point where he couldn't stand up because his balls were too big. 

This was another case of a vet saying, "There really isn't much we can do.  …  He's a guinea pig." 

Currently, we have Cutie:

So far, so good.

Lets go back to the first pig for a moment though.  You see, she was super fun when she was alive.  Eventually though, like all things, Heidi passed away. 

Here is where my family's ability to be well meaning smacks into their terrible timing and my over active imagination. 

My mother has this meatloaf she makes, and she went through a phase where she tried to make it more interesting.  She worked very hard on this particular loaf, which is why she was very confused by my reaction to it.

You see, in order to help us mourn the loss of our pet, she attempted to fashion this particular loaf into the shape of beloved Sesame Street character, Snuffleupagus. 

The nose wouldn't stay up and it very quickly stopped looking even remotely like a muppet. 

Instead, it kinda looked like a guinea pig.

My immediate assumption was, of course, "OH MY GOD.  MY FAMILY IS EATING OUR DEAD GUINEA PIG." 

Because, you know, I was totally stable.  

...

Yep.