Did you know guinea pigs are born just like. Tiny adults? They’re fully cooked. They come out, eyes open, fully furred, ready to do the whole array of guinea pig activities.
I learned this as a child. I was perhaps ten when this story took place. Our female guinea pig was pregnant, but she’d gotten mites and needed a bath. She was wildly pregnant. Bulging at the seams with babies. Ready to burst at any moment because all the babies needed to stay in there long enough to be full pigs. But we wanted to avoid the babies all getting mites and needing baths. We failed, they all needed baths. Mites are a bitch.
We knew she had three babies cooking in there. How did we know? We could feel each individual bulge in her belly. My mom was overseeing the pig bath but I was pretty much just doing my own thing, scrubbing her gently, rinsing the soap carefully.
After the bath our mother pig was not in the best mood. I was carrying her back to her freshly made mite free bedding when she’d had enough.
I was acutely aware that I was holding four lives in my childish grip, and I bore her along as if she were made of precious jewels and spun glass. Balanced in my hands I could feel the bulge of each of her babies slithering wetly around under her skin.
Which is why when she hauled off and sank her teeth into the meat of my hand I didn’t flinch. I didn’t drop her. I bore her as carefully and steadily as if I weren’t now bleeding freely, and I set her gently into her pig palace.
As I drew my hands away I screamed:
I then turned to look at my mother, who’d been watching the process intently.
I was fully aware that I had just done the worst possible swear directly in front of an authority figure and was very probably going to be punished. My mom was looking at me with a blank expression that I was waiting to turn stormy or disappointed.
“That must have hurt a lot,” was all she said.
She helped me throughly clean and bandage the bite. All the babies were born healthy and sound, looking like someone had used a shrink ray on trio of a guinea pigs.
Years later my mother confided in me that contrary to my belief that she’d be angry for swearing what she’d felt for me in that moment was overwhelming pride that in the face of pain and shock I had refused to let harm befall my little charges.
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