If you have a child in elementary school, chances are that child
will come to you and beg to take the class pet home for the
weekend. Now, if you are a smart parent, you will say no. You will
say it nicely. You will say it firmly. You will even sound a tiny
bit regretful.
If you have a child in elementary school, chances are that child will come to you and beg to take the class pet home for the weekend. Now, if you are a smart parent, you will say no. You will say it nicely. You will say it firmly. You will even sound a tiny bit regretful.
Or you will be like me. And you will say yes. And that’s why we had a houseguest last weekend named Mr. Be Happy, a white guinea pig with extremely scary red eyes.
Oh, I’m not a total idiot. I’ve been around the parenting block more than once. I figured I could use Mr. B’s impending visit to my advantage and encourage Junior to do some stuff around the house. So I set down some rules: 1) Junior would have to clean off a space on his dresser for Mr. B’s cage; and 2) Junior would be solely responsible for Mr. B.
And Junior agreed to the rules. He even went into his room to clean it. But I guess he must have gotten distracted, because on Friday afternoon when I brought Mr. B home from school and went to put him in Junior’s room, nothing had been done. The dresser was still covered in LEGO creatures of varying sizes, a pile of rocks Junior was convinced were real gold, a collection of pennies and the lizard’s cage.
There was not one clear spot for Mr. Be Happy.
So I did what any mother would do. I put Mr. B in the family room, propped on two counter stools pushed together. Then I reminded Junior about rule two – that he, Junior, would entertain, feed and clean Mr. Be Happy.
Well that lasted about two minutes. Junior basically took the time to pet Mr. B and then went across the street, vaguely promising that he would be back soon. Yeah, right. Even I’m not that stupid. I knew then that Mr. B and I were going to be together all weekend.
At first this was OK. I mean, how hard could it be to take care of a guinea pig? All I had to do was give him some water and some really nasty smelling pellets and he was happy. But right after I gave Mr. B the nasty smelling pellets for his snack, I realized that the nasty smell wasn’t the pellets. It was Mr. B’s cage. Apparently Mr. B used his cage as a bedroom, dining room AND bathroom.
And it was sitting in my family room. Close to my kitchen.
I don’t know what made me the most concerned. The fact that I would have to smell Mr. B’s bathroom all weekend or the idea that someone might think the odor was something I was cooking – or wearing. But just when I was mustering up the courage to take Mr. B out and clean his cage, the dog suddenly discovered that there was a new animal in the house.
And she didn’t like it
one bit.
My dog is the undisputed Queen of All Animals in our home. She gets the right of first refusal for any pet that crosses the threshold. And nobody had discussed the visiting guinea pig with her.
At first she just sniffed. Then she got up on her hind legs and took a good look. And finally, she sat in front of the cage and menaced Mr. B by saying, “Bark, bark, bark, whine, bark, growl, growl, bark.” Roughly translated, that meant, “Stay in the cage or you’re a Scooby snack.”
Which was fine by me. My nostrils had closed up by then anyway. And when Harry got home later that night, he cleaned the cage – and after that, his eyes swelled up to the size of golf balls. Turns out cats aren’t the only animal to which Harry is violently allergic.
But by Sunday, when Harry’s allergies had calmed down, the dog had stopped barking threats, and Junior finally came home to play with Mr. B, I realized something. Those red eyes weren’t so scary after all. And Mr. B was cute and fuzzy.
Even if he did use his bedroom as a bathroom.
