One of the unfortunate side effects of nearly a year of self-quarantine, is that my body begins to awake ridiculously early. Beginning sometimes as early as 3:45-4:00am, I will begin tossing and turning and my brain (not to mention my bladder) will slowly start to wake up so that by 5:00-5:15am I am more or less alert enough that I will inevitably, and rather begrudgingly, drag myself out of bed for good. Why? I have no idea.
It’s frustrating as fuck.
I’m not necessarily motivated to do anything in particular (ie. exercise), so instead I pour myself a coffee and go fuss around in the garage for a half hour or so. And I don’t really even accomplish anything there either, I just kind of look at all the “projects” I have on the go and meticulously (well, as meticulous as one can be at the ass crack of dawn) plan what I will do with it next when the opportunity presents itself – current opportunity excluded of course, as clearly it’s too early for power tools.
(That’s my story.)
Honestly, I just sift through all the junk and try to re-imagine what else I might use it for if I was more creative and, well … handy.
Just sayin’ …
But anyway, being awake early sucks.
Thank you, COVID.
It’s during these mindless early morning junk sifting sessions where I am often reminded by random things from the past. Things I haven’t thought about in eons. Like my waking up retarded early, there is no good reason that I can figure why these silly things come to me so early in the morning – they just do. And this morning, while envisioning some rusted railroad spikes as little crosses, I was reminded of “The Chosen Pig”.
And if that’s not completely random, then I don’t know what is.
The Chosen Pig was in fact a guinea pig, Nancy – the first of many – that we had growing up as kids*. It was a birthday present for my little sister’s sixth birthday but, really, Nancy belonged to my mom. My mom adored the hell out of that guinea pig.
In fact, I’m pretty sure she considered it her fourth child.
As far as guinea pigs go, Nancy was alright I guess; she was brown, largely stationary and rather looked like a large fuzzy peanut on legs.
Lord knows why my mother revered this motionless rodent so much.
It’s not like guinea pigs have much personality, you know what I’m sayin?
A guinea pig has the exact same look for everything:
This is a nice way of saying that guinea pigs as stupid as fuck.
Cute, of course … but dumb as a bag of hammers.
Regardless, my mother doted on this Peruvian ground rat as if it was a returning prisoner of war in guinea pig form. Nancy had only the freshest smelling ceder chips in her cage (which was changed every three days), ate only the sweetest apples and crispest lettuce leaves**, was brushed and groomed every single day, and lived in cardboard boxes made of only the finest non-toxic and unscented quality.
In other words, for a guinea pig, Nancy’s life was pretty goddamn sweet.
This inflated sense of regalia for Nancy was only further reinforced when Nancy ended up winning 1st place in a local pet show at the Boys & Girls Club of Niagara.
The pride of which goes without saying.
To my mother, however, Nancy was simply the bomb-diggity.
According to my mom, Nancy was also “smart”. Now, bare in mind that a guinea pig has a brain the size of a lentil and who’s best strategic reaction in any situation is to freeze and …
Not clever animals, but I digress …
Nancy’s “smarter than your average guinea pig” intelligence was solely demonstrated by her ability to flop itself down on my mom’s chest should she lay on her back in the middle of the living room floor with Nancy suspended above her and resting on her knees. Why this was considered a sign of ‘intelligence’, I’ll never know but my mother thought it was miraculous. To the rest of us, it looked like a lame family-friendly version of the old ‘Diving Horse’ attraction at an old-timey State Fair, but to my mom it rivalled anything ever scene under Barnum & Bailey’s big top – it was the “Greatest Show on Earth”.
Needless to say, my mom was often a few coconuts short of a pina cola.
However, there was one particular occasion where Nancy’s ultimate self-worth was elevated to something near divine status. As was her habit, my mother often took Nancy along with our other guinea pigs (Dorothy, Robin, Clarice, and Jujube) outside into the back yard to enjoy the afternoon breeze while grazing on our lush summer lawn. There she had constructed a large circular enclosure made out of chicken wire to which she affixed beach towels over top in order to provide shade from the afternoon sun. Then she would set about her usual gardening, or tending to her koi pond, or perhaps sit on the porch and enjoy a cigarette all the while watching over her guinea pigs happily frolicking in the grass …
Every so often, as the hot summer sun moved its way overhead she would adjust the towels over the enclosure so that her little “herd of cavies” had a constant respite from the direct sunlight. After all, guinea pigs are mountain creatures and prefer the coolness of elevated South American mountain sides, not necessarily the intense glare of a hot July sun, so it became my mother’s own labour of love on the weekends while the rest of us were off doing God knows what. On this particular day though, whether she ended up getting busy and distracted or fell asleep in her lawn chair, my mother forgot to rotate the towels until the poor pigs had all gone ‘hooves up’ … except Nancy.
Nancy was nowhere to be found.
Somehow, while the other guinea pigs suffered the tragic throes of heat stroke, Nancy had miraculously escaped and made her way into a shady row of dwarf evergreens that ran along the side of the garage.
How she did this is anyone’s guess.
There was no evidence of digging. But, anyway, guinea pigs don’t dig. She sure didn’t jump the fence because of course guinea pigs don’t jump, and she couldn’t have climbed over it because, yup, you got it … guinea pigs don’t climb. Guinea pigs just do this:
Steve McQueen they are not.
So how she actually accomplished this Great Escape remains a mystery to this day***, but in my mother’s eyes Nancy had now become “The Chosen Pig”.
Nancy was regarded as nothing less than a total miracle and from that point forward, had been elevated in status above everyone else … including us kids. She lived out the rest of her illustrious life (all two years of it) more or less treated as a god with all the benefits and privileges befitting such incredible piousness. She had a little ornamental pillow on which to rest and be transported back and forth from her cage to my mothers lap. No shit! You could trash the backseat of the family car but God forbid if you should ever get a stain on Nancy’s special pillow.
HEADS WOULD ROLL!
Nancy lived the literal Life of Riley up until the very end which, sadly, wasn’t much further down the road. She was buried on her little pillow in the same place we found her on that fateful day, among the dwarf evergreens along the garage. I’m sure she’s now forever perched on my mother’s balled up knees up in heaven right now waiting to flop down like a wet sponge onto my mom’s waiting bosom.
I’m sure God is shaking his head.
God help him(self).
God Help Me! 