- You know your'e a guinea pig slave when you a big salad dinner, and the piggies knock the food bowl over getting bedding and tic-tacs on the nicely sliced veggies and you clean each veggie off only for your guinea pig to do it again.
- Amanda
- You're learning about Peru in Geography class and when you learn that roast guinea pig is a typical food there, you freak out and nearly start crying. All your classmates, who don't understand us guinea pig fanatics, give you weird looks and start saying, "Calm down, their just guinea pigs!" and you say, "JUST GUINEA PIGS?!" and start giving them lectures on guinea pigs and why their so great...(this could take hours :) )
- Stephanie
- ...your friends tell you they are coming back in the next life as one of your
guinea pigs
- John
- ...cleaning the Guinea Pig's cage is more important that cleaning
your own apartment (which really, really, really needs it!)
- ...you're a film student and you're trying to figure out a script for
a movie that could star your Guinea Pig.
- ...you've had your first Guinea Pig for two days, and you spend hours
and hours on the internet looking for GP websites to make sure you know
absolutely everything about them, at the expense of your worried mother
not being able to reach you on the phone.
- Lauren
- ...you find you're too tired to read this whole list, that you print out All 15 pages to read later!!!!
- Grace
- you can tell the grocery clerk the universal
codes for endive, romaine, and parsley before they can look them up!
- Chris
- ...You have to have your pigs on your wedding photos and video.
...You ring from the Maldives to the UK just to see that they are OK when you are on your honeymoon.
...You buy a bigger house so they have more room.
- Mark
- ... the first morning you are able to sleep late after Daylight Saving
Time starts you can't because you are too excited about going to a pignic!
- Joy
- ...you are trying to get everything done you need to get done to go to work, you are telling your piggie, "Now,
Buffy, if the sun comes out good today, the snow will start melting and falling off of the top of the trailor. It will make a very loud noise, but don't worry, cos it won't hurt you, ok"? Telling her just as if she understands me completely, which hey, maybe she does, right?
- Terry
- You get a new job, working in the office at a local high school for a few
wheeks, and your first thought is "cool, they have a paper shredder, I can
get more shredded paper for the piggies!".
- Robyn
- .your guinea pig sulks when you don't carry him over to sit
on your bed and watch you prepare for work in the morning..
.you absolutely MUST say goodbye to your guinea pigs and tell them
"mommy will be back" even if you are only gone for a short while..
.at the end of the day, you kiss each piggie on the top of the head and
say "mommy loves you - goodnight my precious ones"..
.. everything you wear is covered with cavy hair and you don't care.
- Britt
- you drive approx. 700 miles roundtrip (stopping every hour to offer the piggies water) with an overnight stay, spend over $100 in gas, food, and lodging all for the fun of the southern guinea pig pignic!
- Amy
- you wear almost as much fur as your piggie does! His white fur looks great against a red housecoat - but what the heck,
he doesn't care, so I don't either.
- Jean
- ...the babies get their breakfast BEFORE you do, or you'll hear about it.
...you hold one, and then the others complain, so you have to make time to hold EACH one, even if it means you're up a little past your bedtime.
...you put your piggie's tub on the kitchen counter, she watches you make various goodies (cake, etc.) and you lean over every few minutes and say "how ya doin', sweet one? Want mommy to get you a carrot? a raisin? a grape?"
...you drag your piggie's tub from room to room as you dust, so she can
watch you and you can carry on a "conversation" with her.
..you take out your "kissy-face" piggie and hold her, just so she can
lick you and treat your face like a big ice cream cone.
- Denise
- ...after working all day you'll go to the
pet store just to see if there are any gp's
there or spend precious quiet time on the
web looking for more gp photos.
- Linda
- ...it's almost midnight, you're 40 messages behind in you're e-mail and you just can't go to bed before reading the
GPDD.
- Monica
- ...You get something for your gpig and you worry more about how it is treated on the airplane than your stuff;
...You pay more for treats for guinea pigs than your own source of energy...chocolate. :)
...You go into withdrawl when you go without your digest for 3 weeks.
- Erin
- ... You are awakend by the neighbors up the street setting off fireworks at 1:30 am. So you get up, and turn the radio
on for the piggies so they will not be frightened even though they didn't seem to mind the noise.
- Becky and the carrot tribe
- ...everything you bring home from the store is for them and your daughter asks if you brought her anything....."um, how do you feel about parsley, hon?"
- Linda
- ... you have a 2-story house, and your "emergency plan" for possible fires, natural disasters, etc., is all about how to get the piggies safely out, not about your important papers and "valuables."
... when you are planning a vacation, calling the best pet sitter in town comes before even making travel and hotel reservations - if you can't get the best sitter, no point in leaving town.
... you insist on telling the supermarket check-out clerk WHY you have an entire basket full of parsley, mini-carrots, cilantro, and cucumbers.
...you insist on telling the office supply store check-out clerk WHY you are buying 3 more packages of Neat Ideas Cubes, and start explaining to him, without any encouragement, how to build guinea pig cages.
You know you're married to a guinea pig slave when
... he wakes you up not with a "good morning dear," but with "there are starving creatures out there, you know!"
... he's running to the store to get cereal and milk, and doesn't ask "do you need anything?" but instead asks "Do the piggies need anything?"
- Kelly
- ...you think you buy enough blueberries for cobbler AND the 'pigs but, in fact, you have JUST enough for the cobbler, so you skimp on the dessert so you can give your babies a fresh, yummy treat.
.......you leave the fish tank light on for a nightlight!
.......you leave instructions for the babysitter that have nothing to do with the two children she's supposed to be watching. She knows, however, where the 'pig treats' are when the chorus of "wheeking" begins.
- Shirley
- you buy liquid vitamins for you're piggy but first you have to take a drink of the vitamin/water mixture to make sure it doesn't taste yucky.
- Janelle
- ...your GP, Baby, sits on dada's lap, and HAS to be hand-fed a piece of dada's cereal "golden grahams" BEFORE dada can eat his own.
...Baby continues to bug dada, and tries to climb in the cereal box to get even more of that sweet treat.
...Baby pitches a fit when you put her in her tub (whining, popcorning, etc.) so you give her (and your other pigs too) pieces of timothy hay to keep the peace.
...Li'l Girl won't stop licking your face when you pick her up, and sits there countless numbers of times "tranced" with her head up in the air, and you see that cute kisser and want to scream.
...you can't get any work done, 'cause you're spending too much time talking and playing with your piggies.
...your GP's make carrots actually look GOOD to eat.
...your GP Sweetie gets all excited when momma tells him "MOMMA LOVE SWEETIE, MOMMA LOOOVE SWEEETIE!!" :-)
- Denise
- ...you give them bottled water.
...you buy blank newsprint for them to tear apart.
...you get sick of listening to your human children whine, but when the 'pigs "wheek" for hours on end, you sit back and enjoy it.
...someone else picks up a 'pig and he "wheeks" and screeches until he is handed over to Mom........I love that!
...you find that in regular correspondence to those who are not blessed with the company of 'pigs, you write "pigtures" and "wheekend" and other 'pig-related lingo.
and finally........you rely on the prayers of and camaraderie among other 'pig moms and dads' when your pig is ill. Thanks, everyone!
- Shirley
A Slight Deviation from the Norm...
you know you're MARRIED to a guinea pig slave when ...
* your spouse walks in the door from work and goes straight
to the guinea pigs to greet them, give them hay and
attention, before he/she gives YOU any attention!
* your spouse says "i love you" in this sweet voice, and
you say "I love you too" before you realize he/she is
talking to the piggies and not you!
* your spouse won't even pour you a cup of coffee in the
morning, but he/she will make sure the piggies have hay,
water, fresh veggies, etc.
* your spouse has pictures of the guinea pigs on his/her
web site, but no pictures of You!
* your spouse has pictures of the guinea pigs on his/her
desk at work, but no pictures of you! (to be fair, my
husband ALSO has a picture of me on his desk).
* your spouse thinks it's perfectly reasonable to spend
over $100 a month on the guinea pigs food and toys, but
thinks that going out to dinner (for humans only) is too
expensive.
* you and your spouse plant a garden with the guinea pigs
in mind. You don't bother planting anything they can't eat
(like iceberg lettuce or hot peppers)
* you also KNOW you're a guinea pig slave and married to a
guinea pig slave when you can compose a list this long and
could continue for hours if you weren't afraid of taking up
all the space in the GPDD!!!
- Brittney
and now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
- ...you say "YEEEAAAHHH BA-BY!", your guinea pig (Baby) pokes her head up over her tub thinking you're talking to her, and you're really talking to your husband.
...your shopping cart at the grocery store is more than half full with stuff for your little ones, but barely anything for yourself.
...you don't need an alarm clock most mornings, because the pigs ARE your alarm clock.
...your guinea pig sulks when you don't carry her over in her tub to sit on your bed and watch you prepare for work in the morning.
...you absolutely MUST say goodbye to all your little ones and tell them "mommy will be back" even if you are only gone for a short while.
...your husband kisses you in front of the pigs and they're all hanging out of their tubs, thinking you're gonna give them a treat.
...they really SQUEAK and WHINE until you give them what they REALLY want, even if you don't have it at the moment.
...at the end of the day, you kiss each piggie on the top of the head and say "mommy loves you - goodnight my precious ones."
- Denise
- ...you keep a lint brush in the living room at all times!
- Yoni
- you catch yourself singing the song you made up for your guinea, while you're at work.
- Ruth
- I leave the radio on so my GP won't feel lonely. I even make sure it's on a classical or smooth jazz station so the music and the DJs will be soothing for him!
- Angel
- you FINALLY get another GP Digest (after a week of withdrawl and anxiety) and it's 81K with 78 messages ... and over half of those messages are relating to not receiving the digest for awheek! :)
- brittney
- your gp gets not only his own homepage, but also his own URL address. ;-)
Coming soon: http://www.harvey.purespace.de (Still in process.)
- Su-Ji
- you have 59 pigtures up! [on your website]
- Melinda
- you automatically smile and think pleasant thoughts when you smell wood chips! This happens a lot to me...always reminds
me of the troop!
- Tiffany
- you turn on the air conditioners in the house and run up your electric bill just to make sure the guinea pig is comfortable.
- Joel
- you rush to personal web pages to see the latest pigtures that have been posted!
- Jean
- you are trying to describe the way a teenage boy was behaving in front of a teenage girl and the only word you can think of to do so is rumblestrutting!!!!!!!!!!
- Joan
- your mom 'owes' you a birthday gift for a pair of pants that didn't fit, and you tell her to just buy your pigs a bag of Carefresh instead!
- Amanda
- you hold and rotate his carrot while he eats so he eats the sweetest part first! He gives me the kindest of
looks.
- Rita
- you ask your friends to keep an eye out for dandilion patches.
- Nadine
- you order a salad at a restaurant and pick out what you don't like in the salad for your piggies when you get home
- Nadine
- you purposely choose a snack for the kindergarten class that the piggies will love...so you can take the left overs
home to them. (I do this all the time!)
- Teresa
- you're fixing yourself a salad and you pick our the good stuff for the piggies and you take the leftovers!
- Lutricia
- it's Saturday night...I'm on my way home--late--from a party...the grocery
store is NOT on my way home, however I'm struck with the thought that I am
clean OUT of fresh veggies for the piggies' "evening treat" and will have
nothing on hand for their "morning treat" either...
so, tired and hazy I go out of my way to the 24-hour grocery and stumble
through the veggie aisles to buy fresh and yummy treats for the
piggies...completely forgetting that I am out of milk, coffee and juice for
myself for Sunday a.m.
Ta da. A slave through and through, I tell you!!!
- Beverly B
- you go with your pals to the corner shop during your lunch break; they buy chocolate but you pick up a cabbage for the guinea pig.
- April
- when you write yourself a note not to forget the tomato tops from work when you go home.
- Robyn
- you purchase your veggies with "sharing them with your guinea pig" in mind, and he winds up getting ALL of them!
- Cathy
- you ask people you hardly know for the
pinecones off their Christmas wreaths for your piggies
- Kathy
- you go looking for a new house and the first thing you look at is the garage and back garden in terms of pig sleeping space and running room, before you even look at bedrooms or closet space!!!!!
- Amanda
- your bathtub overflows because you were too busy cuddling to pay attention!!! AAAAA!
.it's the Fourth of July in Boston, Massachusetts (USA), and instead of watching the fireworks and Boston Pops, YOU'RE at home bathing all the piggies!
- Tammy Rao
- i said "wheek" when i picked up my sock which had dropped to the floor yesterday.
- THE TERRAPIN
- you hear a shoe squeak in the middle of your art class and look around to see who was wheeking.
- Tamara
- you pop out mid-essay to
grab a packet of crisps but end up lingering around
the fruit and veg and getting something for the
guinea pig.
- April
- your piggy loses his poop that he just passed in the folds of a blanket or sweatshirt. Hearing his grunts of confusion, spinning around, you find it, and feed it to him.
- LJ
- you go to work, but have to leave and run home because you hear that it's going to be cooler than they had earlier
reported on the weather and you won't be at ease until you get home and turn off the a/c and turn the heat back on, just in case it would get really cold in the trailer. :-)
- Terry
.
- when you talk about your pigs and the GPDD at work and your co-workers look at you like you have three heads.
....when your co-workers ask how your weekend was and how the pigs are doing.
....when your coworker says to you "You never talk about your cat anymore. Is she o.k.?"
....when you make sure your pigs eat more fresh veggies than you do.
- Joanne
- when you go off to college and you make little cut-outs of each of your pigs to stick on your wall. But you don't stop there; you make little cut-out vegetables, food dishes, waterbottles, and toilet rolls too!
- Stefanie
- ..guinea pig "pellets" on the floor are about as innocuous as brown M&M's, and you don't think twice about picking them up with your bare hands.
(My husband's socks, on the other hand....) :)
- Tammy Rao
- when your pig does not have shavings but towels!! You are constantly picking up her poopoos so she doesn't have to step on them and you do "her" laundry before yours. Not to mention she has more towels and more colourful towels than you do!
I can go on and on about being a slave...
- Tabitha
- I know I'm a slave because I have tiny Christmas stockings for each of my pigs with their names on them and because I have a framed picture on my desk at home of each of my piggies who have gone over the bridge. :)
- Stephanie
- I know i'm a slave when i print my piggies face on my T-shirt and go everywhere with it, have their photos in my room, in my files, uses rolls of film on them, and is planning to make a jigsaw and watch with their cute little faces printed on it.:)
- THE TERRAPIN
- you have a veggie garden full of parsley, capsicum, coriander, carrots, etc etc...that are not grown for your kitchen, but for your pigs.
- Angeline
- you ALWAYS make sure that your piggy gets HIS vitamins, but you usually forget to take your own!
- Cathy
- you "meet" someone via the Digest; call her to chat; and she puts her piggie on the phone to wheek at you (hey, Irene!), and you think it's perfectly normal.
- Amy
- You bring a friend home and show them your piggies and they realise that shaving perfume isn't perfume. :)
- Janilee
- you're feeding your gang of guinea pigs their nightly bit of pellets, and
you realize that you have 4 different bags of pellet food open, and you're
carefully mixing them to make sure they get the right blend of them!
- Brittney
- you rush home, starving, for lunch, and wash, chop, and hand feed veggies
to your piggie before grabbing a PBJ sandwich for yourself.
- Brenda
- ... you have a new picture of some of your pigs as the wallpaper on your PC, and when you shut down a program and arrive back at the desktop you find yourself saying, 'hello piggies'......
- Helen
- ...you really don't care what is acceptable and normal because you'd rather stay home and care for the piggies (birds, bunny, mice, frog, and dogs,) than socialize with people who don't understand anyway.
- Julie
- ...despite the fact that you want to stay up late to watch Star Trek, you have no desire at all to go to bed, and have almost nothing to do in any other room of your apartment, you decide to leave the frontroom to your two beautiful pigses. After all, they're tired, and are getting agitated with you -- and you'd much rather be bored witless for the next few hours than cause your pigses any kind of inconvenience! :)
- Anjela
- ...you know you're a guinea pig slave when you are late to work because you had to rock and sing your baby to sleep.
- Kerrie
- ...You order out dinner, and list all the things you want in the salad your ordering for your piggies, and hang up and forget to order for yourself.
- Suzie
- ... you write an email and put the names of all your pigs and then realise...
..you've left off *your* name!
- Kathryn
- ...you go out and purchase 2 big bags of Carefresh bedding to keep with your food storage to have on hand if in an emergency you cannot find it at your pet store, you must always have a back up until you can purchase another bag.
...you wish the dandelion fairies would come out because you want to plant and harvest your own dandelions and keep them on the window sill all year long, and your friends think you are crazy. You tell them you like the pretty yellow flower.
...each time you pass the cage you have to stop and pick the flecks of bedding out of the food dish.
...the morning just drags on and you just can't wait till 5 pm to get home. You end up taking an early lunch so you can rush home to spend time with your baby gp.
...you rush to work so you can spend time on the GPDD before your boss comes in because you can't wait to read the daily postings.
...you notice that the thoughts of your GP take up the majority of your thinking (building a new cage, what they will eat tonight, how she is feeling - have her bugs cleared up yet?, does SHE miss ME as much as I do her?)
...you don't know how to answer when a non gp friend asks, "What did you do last night? ". You could never tell her you spent the whole night playing with your GP
...you wake up in the morning and notice a few poopoos in your bed. You very tenderly get a tissue to pick them up and say very lovingly - "I guess Cami poo-pooed before bed last night" and it doesn't bother you in the least.
...you go to bed early hopeing you will wake up when the house is quiet and can spend some quiet time with your piggie.
...you wonder, "Did I feed my child last night? I was so busy playing with my Cami".
...you wait to go grocery shopping till your piggie veges are out. You go without milk for a few days because you wait to use up the last pieces of good parsley so you can do ALL the shopping at once.
...coming home at the end of a long day to your cavy is the high point of your whole day.
...you mark off with a big X on the calendar the days remaining till the next cavy show.
...you read the same GP books over and over, just because you like the material.
...you get a call waiting ring while you're on the line talking about GPs with a friend. You know it's your mother calling long distance (because you told her to call at 9pm) but you don't answer her call because you enjoy talking about your cavy too much. When you talk to Mom the next day, you say, "oh, I must not have been home".
...you long for the weekend so you can spend more time with your piggie. Or, you call in sick to work because you just want to be home with Cami today. When your boss asks the next day how your little girl is, you say, "she's just fine, thank you".
...you call the local pet store every other day, disguising your voice of course, to see if they've gotten any gps in. You just love to go look at them when they do.
...you think your piggie is the luckiest piggie in the world because she lives in a home where she is loved so much.
...you wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep so spend your time writng responses to, You know you're a GP slave when...AND ENJOY THIS TIME SO MUCH.
- Tara
- your road plans revolve around ice coolers for lettuce, hotels that take pets and a super-deluxe travel case with a lambswool for comfort!
- Jean
- ...three of your six food shopping bags are veggies for the pigs
... you love having dandelions in your lawn so you can give them to your piggies!
... you don't make your bed up because a piggie is sleeping in it and you don't want to disturb them.
... you turn the AC on to make sure the piggies are cool enough while you are at work.
- Dee
- ..you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to feed your pigs two grapes each for their
nightly snack (I have three pigs), or they will continue to whine until
you do.
...you get up early on a Saturday morning because your "babies" want
their food NOW.
..you get shortcut carrots for the pigs, and ONLY for the pigs.
..you have pictures of your brood proudly displayed on the bottom of
your computer monitor at work. (And people still ask "what's that, a
hamster?")
..you talk "babytalk" to them (example: "Is Timmy coming to visit?" By
this you mean do they want timothy hay.)
..you refer (privately, of course) to your refrigerator as "the golden
box where the num-nums (food) is kept".
- D.M.
- ..you give up listening to music on your boombox or Walkman to listen to the music of baby piggies popcorning!
- Rena
- you drink tap water while your piggie gets bottled water? :-)
- Lisa
- ..the pictures on your desk at work are more recent than those of hubby and the kids. And more
numerous!
..you drive across town to get veggies for piggies but purchase your family's groceries at the
nearest supermarket.
- Sharon
- ..your cavies get organically grown produce you buy at a special store (like Whole Foods Market), but you go to any old
supermarket (like Vons) to get all your food (which you try to get on sale for the cheapest price).
- Mary
- Agreed. I tried to buy some cantalope for a reduced price last week
because it was starting to go bad. When I told the guy I had 20 guinea
pigs and they just loved cantalope, he GAVE me 6 of them and wrote no
charge on the box.
- Penny K.
- 1.) You shop at the most expensive grocery stores (Central Market, if you
know Austin) for them, and the cheapest for you.
2.) You carry pigtures in your purse so that 1. if you miss during the day
you can sneak a peak and 2. if you start talking about them (often occurs)
you can show them
3.) You're a college student, but have been known to go home early from a
night on the town because, "They'll be mad at me, because we didn't have
playtime yesterday." is what you tell your friends and secretly you miss them.
4.) After realizing all the satisfaction that the little sweethearts bring,
the desire to have children lessens considerably.
5.) In truth, you use the GPDD as a support group because y'all are the
only ones who understand.
- Elisa
- You spend all day cleaning and disinfecting cages, grooming and bathing pigs, then when finished - YOU are a filthy mess and YOUR living space needs cleaning! But you are sooooo happy for your clean, popcorning friends that you take them out to play instead of doing housework.
- KViesRUs
- ... your fingertips are orange (from running to the frig for those baby carrots) !
- George
- ... You drive around with a pet carrier in your car for a month and a half in hopes of finding your little dream.
- Ruth
- ...You've already done all the shopping for the weekend because you have to work. You come home and unpack the bags and find you bought all the Gpig veggies, pellets, fruit and treats for a whole weekend but you discover that you have forgotten something......
Your own food!
- Lydia
- ...you rush home from work at
lunch time to feed your pigs and don't have time to eat yourself!(
believe me it happens all the time!)
- Amy
- ...You put aside the weekend to find a decent used camera so you can take
pictures for the next official calendar!
...it is 2 o'clock in the morning and you get up to take an ibuprofen for a headache. When you pour the tablets out in
your hand, all 23 pigs start wheeking because they are SURE that is their coveted tutti-frutti vitamin C tablets. So at 2 in the morning you stumble around the house distributing the vitamin C tablets to all your piggies. They can't be disappointed you know! - Becky
- you condition your pig's dry coat with Aveda products and use the cheap stuff on your own hair.
- Kim
- you get the salad spinner out to dry the piggies veggies but don't 'have time' to dry your own.
- Monica
- You get a developed film back from the photo-shop and 25 out of 36 photos are of GPs. When you have to change your bank account and decide to choose to the bank which is near to the pet shop "because you are regularly in that area anyway". Back home you consider if it wouldn't be even more convenient to transfer your salary directly to the pet shop's account....
- Christiane
- ... you spend lots of time shucking the husks off of the sunflower seeds from the treats can because your pet likes the meat of the nut but you are worried about the effect of the husks on his teeth and he is too lazy or too spoiled to remove the husks himself.
- Joel
- ... all you can do is laugh when your little "Pinecone" runs up your front from the vet's table, after being given a mite injection, and bites into your great- aunties pearls that you were going to wear 2 days later at a special 20th. wedding anniversary
renewing our vows service (sentimentally , because you wore them at the original wedding ) - and BREAKS them !! (And no-one can restring them in time ) Not only that , but then he won't spit out the 3 he still has in his mouth , until after some firm encouragement from the vet.! And still all I can do is laugh and forgive him. What an incurable slave I am!
....You leave a perfectly nice dinner party and risk getting a speeding ticket so you can race home to bring the piggies inside because it's getting dark!
- Heather
- ...You are constantly replacing and fluffing the expensive CareFresh in the cage so the piggies will be comfortable but never make your own bed
...You resolve to save more money in 1998 but then spend megabucks on a bigger cage and more piggie accessories
...You put this huge cage in the middle of the kitchen floor so the piggies can be "part of the family" even though it is now more difficult than ever to reach the fridge, stove, dishwasher, etc.
- Amy
- ... you answer the phone "weeeeek?"
... you've stuck it out for 8 days without power, thanks to the ice storm, and the only thing keeping the house warm is the oven which runs on Butane but you go and buy a $2000 generator because the pig might not make it if it goes on much longer.
... the furnace started and the temp got back up to normal, Pigster was back to his old self. As a side effect we also get to have hot showers as well, which got me in good with the spouse and the pig.
[We are still without power but apart from the Pigster wearing ear-defenders to combat the noise of the generator, you would not notice any difference in the house.
The GPDD withdrawal, because me computer was down, was another big reason to get a generator. You can only go so long without it you know.....]
...You can't eat a banana without automatically braking of the last inch, which has the seed in it, to give to the piglet. Even when your not at home and its part of your packed lunch. When someone says "why d'you do that" You think quick and say "Oh, that's the best bit. I was saving it till last"
........ahem
- Rod and Judy
- ...you take a break from your GPDD, and go out to the kitchen for a snack. Only, you end up getting carrots for the wheeking piggies, and then you're back at your computer... without a snack!!
...your 4 year old describes a little, fluffy, brown Guinea Pig she has pigtured in her mind that she wants to have some day, and name it "Pot" (she is 4, remember). So you go to the pet store to buy some hay, and guess what? There is the tiniest girl piggie you ever saw, and she is sooooo cute, and you say to yourself "that's Pot", and next thing you know, you are going home with a new piggie.
- Sharon and the Gang
- ...You call their house and leave messages of wheeking on their answering machine, and they know it's you and that they're supposed to call you back...
[I'm not sure who's the worst slave in this one!]
- Pigpen and Tribbles
- ...you go to a specialty/gourmet fruit and vegetable shop and $25 of your $30 bill is for the pigs.
...you bring the produce home from the store, you feed the fresh romaine to your "boys", and make yourself a salad from the somewhat wilted romaine still in the fridge.
- Gaylene
- ...you go to the toyshop to buy them a paddling pool for their Christmas present, and the shop owner asks why you're buying a paddling pool in the middle of Winter. And you tell him!!
- Sian
- ...your piggies are taking virtual trips all over the country, but due to the cost of cages, housesitters, and vet bills, you haven't been out of town in years.
- Toby
- ... your pig feigns a sore foot to get an extra treat and it took being laughed at by the vet to discover his plot
...upon returning home from the vet your pig feigns it again-and still gets a treat for it
...your pig babies the wrong "sore foot" and still gets a treat for it.
...your pigs know they just have to sit and stare at you to get a carrot, no wheeking required.
- Kim
- ...the ONLY part of your sons' room that is clean and tidy is the GP cage!
- Dave and Joyce
- ...you purr to your partner to show him your affection (and risk a shaking of the head and rolling eyes as answer)
... you cut your holidays to a minimum because you don't want to leave the little ones behind
... your new car is a station wagon, because it can take the big cage
... you have 30+ cable channels to choose from, but prefer to watch "Piggy TV"
... you spend ages brooding how "popcorning" or "motorboating" could be translated into your mother-tongue
... you could continue this list with at least 10 more points ...
- Christiane
- ...you won't get up to take your antibiotics (cough, cough, drip) but you drag yourself out of bed because there are piggies to be fed!
- Heidi
- ...your guinea pig has his own screen name Squeek G. Pig. And his own Personal Profile, which can be read by anyone on America Online :)
- Louise
- ...You ask for a "Piggie Bag" at an expensive restaurant, to take home all
the parsley & endive garnishes to you little piggens.
...You have a baby car-seat for your piggies!
- Sammie
- ...you make it a point to record your piggie wheeking and chirping in the background of your telephone's answering machine message, and, you include your piggie by name as someone who "cannot take your call right now..."
- Cj
- ...you spend more on them than you do on your spouse.
...you spend an entire wheek bringing your sick guinea pig to work so you can nurse her to good health, and after she's all better you get separation anxiety because she's not going to work with you anymore.
- Tabatha
- ..when you are all alone at home and it's lunch time and you want to eat something, prepare your meal and put it on the table. Then you go and get one of your piggies, put her on the table, give her a piece of cucumber and that just that you mustn't eat alone! :-)
..when you come home and say "WHEEEK WHEEEK WHEEEK!" Instead of "Hello, my
little darlings!"
.. when one of your piggies asks "Wheek?" (I. e. "Parsley?") and you answer "Wheek, wheek, wheek!"
- Irene
- ...your husband thanks you for putting green pepper in his salad because he knows you don't eat them raw, and you tell him, "It's ok, I was giving some to Milkbone." and he says, "Oh, I see, I get the guinea pig leftovers."
- Jerri
- ...you spend more money on them to make them happy than you do for anyone else in your family :)
- Tabatha
- You have to force yourself NOT to visit a shelter, because you know that
you would end up coming home with yet another rescue pigger...or more!
...your family physician asks you how your boy is doing, and you respond with "Which one?" "Your son, of course! You only have one!" I was mortified, because I had immediately thought of Cocoa and Chips, as I had mentioned them to the doctor at a
previous visit. Eek.
...you hesitate to mention the fact that you have 7 gpigs when asked by an "ordinary", that is non-gp person, because you know they'll gasp and say "WHAT?! HOW many?". Then when corresponding with some GPDD folks, you find yourself saying that you ONLY have 7... :-)
- Sherri
- ..when you automatically assume that everyone who enters your house will
want to meet or visit with the guinea pigs - include repair people and delivery
people!
..when you stand around the water cooler at work and tell guinea pig stories
instead of talking about the football game.
..when there is an expensive, professionally-taken, framed photo of your
guinea pigs hanging on your office wall, and a small, home-taken photo of your
spouse held by a magnet to your bulletin board or desk lamp.
..when you order extra copies of the GPDD calendar to send to your relatives
for Chanukah/Christmas presents.
.you get up early even on mornings when you could sleep in, because you
can't bear to hear them wheeking their little hearts out in hunger.
..you make frantic calls all over town for fresh timothy hay, rather than feed
them that mediocre hay from the pet store.
..you stand in the grocery store reading the placards by all the veggies and
fruits for vitamin C content first, before even the price per pound.
..every piece of cardboard you see invokes the response, "Oh, let's save that -
it'll make a great piggy toy!"
- Kelly
- ...you spell "week" like "wheek" on emails to everyone, not just your
guinea pig digest friends! I wrote "wheek" down in my notes I was taking
for class, and just laughed ... but if I do this in a paper, i'll be in
trouble! :)
... you already have 3 guinea pigs, including a very pregnant one, and you purchase another one
... your answering machine says
"You have reached the residence of Andrew and Brittney ***** ... and
Silke, Oreo, Patches and Cinnamon ... please leave a message and one of
us will get back to you!"
You're really a slave when you're about to change the message to include
the new babies names ... Monster and Adonis.
- Brittney
- ..everything you wear is covered with piggie fur - blond Calvin hairs on all
your dark clothes and dark Hobbes tiger hairs on all your light-colored
clothes - and you just don't care
..all the organic produce in the house is for the piggies; the humans get the
regular stuff (but your offspring don't mind as long as you buy them off with
cheesy noodles on a regular basis) and you wash, rinse and dry the piggies'
veggies far more thoroughly than your own
- Amy
- ...you drive to a special market that's not on your way home, just because they always have the BEST
parsley, and you just HAVE to give your piggies the best! Especially when they're "stars" in the GPDD Calendar!!
(Thanks again, Tex!!).
- Sandy
- You know you are a certifiable guinea slave when your family no longer
recognizes you without a pig in your lap.
- Jim
- You catch a show with stupid pet tricks involving dogs and spend half
the night wondering what kind of trick your GPs do that would qualify
them for the show....
The only thing I could think of that is
ABSOLUTELY foolproof is scrunching up a plastic bag and waiting for the
wheeks!!
- Gloria
- You know you've become a slave to your guinea pig when you buy
strawberries out of season at exorbitant prices and then don't eat any
yourself because its for the guinea pigs. (And then they go bad because
they couldn't possibly eat them all). I can't remember the last time I
served green beans even though I always have them in the fridge.
- Evelyn
- .. you go out to buy the BIGGEST refrig - we bought a 29.9 side by side
GE refrig this past spring - half of one of the shelves is always
reserved for the 8+ heads of romaine that we buy weekly (when it's been
inexpensive) ... half of the veg bin is for the weekly 12 pounds of
carrots that they go through; the ice crusher is for filling Tupperware,
etc. to put in the cages when it is too warm in the summer ... imagine, a
$2000.00 refrig just for them!!
- Phoebe's Mom
- 1)...you go into your piggy's room to do something non-pig related and end
up petting piggy and forgetting your initial purpose.
2)...g pig tunneling is a factor in deciding to buy a new coat
and giving piggy a new play toy (my other coat)
3)...you can't print off something without ripping off the sides that
feed the paper through. You rush to give them to your precious fur
ball(s) for guinea pig entertainment so they don't get bored.
- Angela
- 1. You go to the fridge to get your two year old a snack, hand her carrot
ends and apple peels, and find OREOS in the Piggie Pen...
2. You open your CD drive to replace a disk, and you daydream how you can
incorporate that little round shelf into your Piggie's PVC playground
3. You have secret 5:30am meetings with the guy who owns the Farmer's
Market down the street to get first chance at picking over the "bruised/over-ripe/outer leaves" bin.
3a. You are willing to wake up at 5:00am to make it to the Farmer's Market in time...
3b. You are *willing* to wade through that bin...
3c. You still choose to "come back when they open" cause the stuff in the
bin might be free..but it will *never* do for Your Piggies...
4. You've changed the words to "This Little Piggie" so the 3rd Little
Piggie has Parsley & Carrots, not roast-beef (bleck!)
5. Your move to a new apartment and before organizing where to place your
couch, TV and bed...you have to decide where your Piggies will like their
habitat best.
6. While discussing your Piggies in public, kindly old ladies ask you
"...and how old are your little girls?"
7. You wonder if you have the right to choose your Piggie's theology...so
they have wooden dreidls in their box to gnaw on, and individually
monogrammed stockings hung on their water bottle.
8. You would seriously consider a hate mail campaign if David Letterman
ever came up with a TOP TEN WAYS TO TOSS A GUINEA PIG list....(outside the
US, Letterman is a talk show host/comedian who nightly provides a satirical
Top 10 List with a topical theme)
9. You look at every stray box, tube, flowerpot, etc, as potential Piggie
Habitat ex tenders --- BTW, there is a company selling an "expandable"
wide, clear, piggie tube for upwards of $20...its really a Recreational
Vehicle dumping tube (opaque) or heating duct tube (clear) and can be
purchased at most RV dealerships for about $5 -- sorry to the folks who
market the other version, but I think we Slaves have the responsibility of
saving our money to buy more veggies, don't you agree?
10. You drive around town with a a "I WHEEK FOR CAVIES" bumper sticker on
your Jeep Grand Cherokee.
- Samantha
- .... you feel so lonely if three of your four piggies leave on a virtual ski trip, that you go out and buy
another piggie.
- Gerda
- You are dead tired, and about to go to sleep, and think to yourself that
you will pet one of your piggies for about 5 minutes before you retire for
the night, but end up cuddling them for an hour!!!!! Then when you're
still tired the next day, you just think to yourself that it was worth the
lost sleep!
- Michelle
- Am I a cavy slave if I get up at 5:30 AM to feed the
little dears before work & come straight home from work to clean cages? Yes
Do the jingley cat toys in every cage count and the 20 wood hiding boxes I built count too (I was forced to use a circular saw, something I am terrified of)? Yes
What about the 2 days I spent driving them all from Washington State to California for our move?Yes
They have clouded my mind!
AAAAGH!
- Juliet
- You can't sleep all night because you're so worried about the piggies in cold weather, then at 2am, overcome with guilt, you stumble outside in the freezing cold to bring them inside. Then one bites you, *but you still love her*.
Ahhhhhh!
- Kathryn
- there is more romaine lettuce and baby carrots in the fridge than people food!
- Jan
- You know you're a guinea pig slave when all the food in the fridge
belongs to the pig.
- Zamboni
- When their gifts out number the human's gifts.
BTW we got them their own tree -just the right size to be next to their cage.
- Renee
- ...your computer-room chair squeaks when you move, and you run to see
what's wrong with the Guinea Pigs. (yes, it's true...)
...you bother to capitalize Guinea Pig and don't bother to capitalize
you own name.
- ...ron
- ...your piggies have their own advent
calendar!
- Claire
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Page maintained by Dale L. Sigler. Copyright © 1997. Updated: 3/29/02
uinea pigs have more
room than you do. Tabatha