My brother is like, the hardest person ever to shop for. If it’s not something totally computer related then I’m stumped. One year we got him the iPhone, which was nice, simple, and of course, he loved it. After that it was like – hmm. socks? Undershirts? Odds and ends that claim to be silly, but are really just extra things to clutter up your much needed living space? … Since the year of the iPhone, my gift giving has proven to be boring, lacking, and disappointing. This year I refused to not give Nick and his girlfriend, Mikaela, something memorable.
That’s when I decided to get them a living creature.
On my first pet store trip I spotted a few small critters that I considered. The gerbils and hamsters were all a bit sassy and ran rather quickly. They were also way too mouse-like. goo. I could just picture them scurrying out of the cage and up the walls of Nick and Mikaela’s apartment whilst doing this weird hiss thing at them that they were practicing at that very moment in the pet shop. No good. The ferrets were stinky. The fish seemed like a good idea… easy, simple, cool.. but not good enough.
That’s when I locked eyes with this white, short haired guinea pig. I asked the kind sir to remove her from the cage and he obliged… But every time he reached down for her she literally screamed, “ahhh!”…. “ahhh!”… I didn’t want to say never mind while he was still attempting to grab her and place her in my arms, but I eventually did as the “ahh!”s got more and more human-like and a certain kind of creepy that I couldn’t tolerate. I walked out of pet store #1 feeling defeated.
was I going to end up getting them pot holders? Was I going to have to resort to silly desk trinkets? No. I refused. This one was gunna go down in history. A few days passed and Jordan and I decided we had to go through with the living animal thing.
We pulled up to pet shop #2 and walked in to see the cutest, little, long haired guinea pig just sitting in his little plastic igloo. We got to take him out and hold him and it was suddenly clear that our little friend was coming home with us.
Yeah, so long story short– Mikaela was all like, “awwwww!!!” and Nick was all like, “ahhhhh!” (maybe I should have gotten him guinea pig #1)… and now Cornelius (who was originally named Howie) is sitting on our dining room table with us as we both sit at our laptops work, work, working. I half expected them to not take Cornelius, well, because who takes a guinea pig when you blindside them with one?… so we had a back up plan – knowing we could provide him with a loving home ’til we figured the rest out. He purrs and eats salad through his cage when I feed it to him. He bites on the water dispenser thing and chews on his toy. He’s a very, very good guinea pig… and he may actually be a she. One cannot tell until they are a certain age.
So here we are, guinea pig in possession, feeling slightly attached and feeling slightly like Cornelius might be better off finding a home where there is no crazy jealous toy poodle resident (aka mimi). We love Cornelius, and he will sit atop our table and eat our lettuce until he finds a loving home, but we just feel sad for him and are kind of not discussing his long term living. For now, we will be hotel Cornelius and come New Year’s Day… I’m sure we will settle on a permanent living situation for the little critter. Plus, there are still so many cool things we can do with Cornelius from now ’til then… Look how photogenic he is!!!
Won’t you please send Cornelius your love!
