trixel

"Little one
Hold on
All of the dreams are wasting"

-Little One by Beck

I've been thinking about one of my best friends who passed on. I'm dedicating this journal to my guinea pig friend Cow.

My dad had a guinea pig as a child and extolled their virtues as a pet friend. The day before my dad's last birthday, October 11th 1998, he said he'd get me a guinea pig friend. It was a rainy sunday. I remember stopping by a chinese speciality grocery and eating snacks in the rain. We wandered into the mall and headed for the pet store.

I would not recommend buying a pet from a pet store, but I'm glad we went there that day, or I would not have found Cow.

I picked up one caramel spiky haired mop of a guinea pig. I petted him a bit. Then I looked down and noticed this one weird looking guinea pig, an alien cavy. I picked it up carefully and looked at him. He protested being picked up with loud squeaks. I knew I wanted this strange silver rodent.

Cow was a silver teddy guinea pig. He had short wiry hair. He always reminded me of a drill sergeant with a crewcut. He had a white stripe down his nose, two black dots on his nostrils and white fur around his eyes. The white rings around his eyes made him looked surprised.

For the first seven months of his life, Cow lived alone. I was a hardcore raver at the time and did not spend much time with him. He became resentful and bit me quite frequently (as I deserved). I called him Chompy for a bit, in response. I don't think he liked my acid and e vibes. Although later on, I spent several hours on E hanging out with him. He was such a strange little creature. Life like me but different. Beautiful.

A week after my dad died in May of 1999, I saw another guinea pig who arrested me: he looked like a toupee, was quick as lightning and had dark brown eyes, full of intelligence which reminded me of watermelon seeds. I'd met Horse. I took him home to be Cow's friend.

Cow stopped biting.

I went to the hardware store and bought a bunch of wire fencing. K's granddad built us a wooden base and we stapled the wire to it. We made a huge pen for them both to play in. For awhile I had a large piece of pvc drainage pipe which ran up to a windowsill. The guinea pigs would run up it and sit on the window sill and watch stuff go by outside. The chunk, chunk, chunk sound of their claws on drainpipe would wake me up.

In the fall of 2002 I heard him crying: he was peeing blood. I took him in to the vet. He had a huge calcium stone in his bladder. I paid to have it removed. He was put on a low calcium diet, but last April I found out it had come back.

I don't think I will ever forget holding his poor little head down while my vet tried to get this huge needle into his tiny neck artery to euthanize him. He struggled hard. He went limp and I buried my face in the soft white fur of his stomach, crying. I didn't go into work. They didn't need to know I wasn't conventionally sick.

I still have Horse and I've adopted my sister's guinea pig and named him Pig for his ginger fur and pink nose. Pig keeps Horse company these days.

I miss Cow's squeaking. He could wake you up from three rooms away. He could sense a carrot at fifty paces. He would run under your hand for you to pet him. If you held him for pets, he'd nibble on your chin. His favourite food was apple. He ate alot of apples during his short lifetime.

I buried him in my mom's backyard, under the apple tree.