I was watching a tear jerker of a video* today that a friend posted. A middle-aged man desperately needed to lose weight. He was morbidly obese and his nutritionist told him to go adopt a dog from the shelter. It would encourage him to be outside and he would meet people. The man purposely adopted an overweight middle-aged dog, so they could relate to each other. They immediately bonded. Both of their lives changed for good. They lost weight and both had more positive outlooks on life. I cried when he talked about lying down next to his dying dog. At the end, he questioned whether he rescued the dog or the dog rescued him. They rescued each other. My four year old son wanted to watch the video twice.

I just went upstairs to feed our rescued guinea pigs some limp celery. Turns out it’s not good enough for human consumption. I also grabbed them some hay. They eat like every eight minutes or something like that. Maybe it’s pooping. Or maybe that’s geese. I stared at them and it may have been the wine thinking, but I got to talking. Did I drive to Wichita to rescue these overly conversational, constantly popping guinea pigs? Or have these guinea pigs rescued me?

Despite my second glass of wine which promotes even more truthful transparent thinking, it’s pretty clear. I rescued the guinea pigs. For my seven year old boys. Not a lot has changed in the past four months for me. Yeah. Yeah. What a selfish jerk, right? I talk with them, change their cage but they just constantly “eep. eep. eeeep” for carrots which I was told I should go easy on giving them. I think they may be addicts. They have too much sugar, according to the humane society highly-knowledgeable volunteer. I really don’t want diabetic guineas. Seems complicated.  I would have to give them to one of my nursing friends. (uh. hem. Lori) I buy them cilantro because a woman at work told me they just love cilantro. Love it. My husband gets a little bummed that I don’t have big Mexican food making plans for the cilantro most days.

“Did you buy the cilantro for the guinea pigs?”

Yep. Again. And the carrots too. But the kids can have some of those if they want. With ranch, of course. Homemade. You know, put the Hidden valley packet in the sour cream. It’s pretty complicated business.

I guess I won’t be able to submit my rescue story to this #mutualrescue organization. I couldn’t do it in a truthful way. I do think our guinea pigs have a much better life. I do think my boys learned about a whole other world that exists in an animal shelter. There were numerous other guinea pigs that we couldn’t adopt from the humane society. We wanted a pair. The others were all fighting each other, biting each other and having to be separated. Maybe they were tired of people staring at them as they waited to adopt a dog or a cat. Perhaps they took it out on each other. Not our guinea pig brothers. They’re alright. Minus their carrot addiction, which I do take full responsiblity for.

But they haven’t rescued me. Or us. Not yet. We’re still holding onto the hope though.

Although in a weak moment to calm my boys’ fears of a robber entering the house while we’re all asleep, I said, “there’s no way that the guinea pigs wouldn’t let us know.” Caged little motion detectors. They alerted the tooth fairy a few weeks ago. I heard her fall into the drum set. Then, the guinea pigs went nutso. Maybe they just don’t like fairies that don’t bring carrots. The tooth fairy should know this, right?

So, it’s not a mutual rescue. But they live 5-7 years. They were a year and a half when we adopted them. There’s still time.

*if you do have a #mutualrescue story or you need to cry, here’s the video I referenced.