Friday, March 20, 2009

When Foggy Brains and Guinea Pigs Don't Mix

Today Janae was holding our one and only breed-able female guinea pig.

And as she sat on the floor holding our one and only breed-able guinea pig in her lap, the guinea pig did what guinea pigs do: it jumped. And kinda started to run. You know, away from us.

Janae did what Janae does at all the wrong times. She just sat there. Now, had it been church or mealtime or a place and setting that requires "just sitting," she would've responded in a different manner. Or I should say, she would've likely responded in a different manner... I'm not God so how can I accurately predict the behavior of a person? Especially if the person is my own daughter, right?

As I lunged for the guinea pig and repositioned it in my daughters lap, I imagined a worse case scenario where the one and only breed-able guinea pig WOULD jump and run away and stay gone. And I mentally calculated the best formula that could be used to catch the run-a-way-pig.

In my sleep deprived, it's-been-a-long-day frame of mind, I decided the best solution would be to also let our one and only breed-able male guinea pig loose and hope he could find our one and only breed-able female guinea pig. Surely fate instinct would lead them together.

Then, the two of them could do, well, what guinea pigs do best and from that union would likely spring forth an average of about 2-3 baby guinea pigs and voila: we'd have about 5 chances of catching a guinea pig thus improving our chances of catching a wild loose pig.

My math skills have always been poor but I was impressed with the mental calculation that redundantly played over in my foggy brain that day. I concluded that our chance of retrieving a live pig and adding it to our diminished herd of guinea pigs would best be achieved if there were more than just one pig loose, but rather a generous amount of five.

As I assessed the repercussions of such reproductive activities, I wondered what the cat would think about this idea. Not that there's a connection or anything but when I thought of the cat, I was also reminded of the building inspector, should we ever need him for future projects. And what about the bank inspector should we ever decide to refinance? Or the tax assessor? Or even our friends should we ever have any of them over?

I decided an investment in live traps would be the most economical option because seriously, who wants to be involved in the topic of wild rumors of guinea pigs or to be known as The People Who Live In The House Crawling With Real Live Guinea Pigs?

For some reason, I sure don't.

I would hate to use our home as a guinea pig for what happens when guinea pigs get loose. That's not the Guinness-Book-of-World-Record's-page I would like to hold a title to. And if not even I would be impressed to hold that kind of popularity, who would?

1 comment:

Dennis and Valerie said...

This little mental escapade sounds familiar. I thought maybe I was the only one to get lost in the 'what ifs'. What if I suddenly let out a loud yelp in this restaurant? What would happen if I suddenly steered my vehicle into oncoming traffic (that's a scary one)? What if I didn't brush my teeth for a year? Stuff like that. Thanks for sharing the guinea pig 'what if'.