I am so happy right now!

[Teto 2609]

car-uh-mel. You?

i totally missed a joke didn't i

 

Let me join you there under the path of the joke, because it passed over my head too.

[pheonix561 2080]

So I had a take home test in my PHHE class... That I completely forgot to take. I didn't even know we had one until I arrived at class last night and my professor mentioned it. I felt royally puppyed for two minutes until he said the grades on the exam were so abysmal that he was going to let us retake it entirely. Lucky Break!

I of course took the test and failed it but at least I got a high enough grade that I'm still passing the class :B

[PrimaGaga 1025]

car-uh-mel. You?

i totally missed a joke didn't i

Its pronounced Caramel. People who call it Caramel are stupid because its obviously Caramel. Gosh

[Sayubie 405]

carmel

 

(how u fel)

((i don't really say that))

[Necropolis 763]

Its pronounced Caramel. People who call it Caramel are stupid because its obviously Caramel. Gosh

This was the joke

[Sahaqiel 1232]

So last Tuesday, Betty's guinea pig, Bilbo, went missing. Her cousin that had been taking care of it left it unattended in their fenced backyard, for an hour, and when he came back it was gone. She'd raised the guinea pig from when it was just a tiny piggy, and she always treated it so sweetly and loved playing with it or just petting him. When she took him outside he'd wander in the grass a little bit, but if she started to move, he'd follow her. He's a sweetie, in other words.

 

 

That was one reason I was sad. It was actually more like 30% because of her, 10% because I also really liked the guinea pig, 60% because I've been thinking morbidly about dying in hopelessness. Like, if you were to become stranded in space, literally no one is going to come to help you, no matter how hard you hope. Or even adrift at sea, or so close to other people that know but just don't want to get involved. It's more close to the first two because the third pisses me off endlessly just by thinking of it. Anyway.

 

So I would have had a much more positive outlook on Bilbo's survival had I not seen a hawk swoop down and snatch a pigeon out of the air and fly off with its probably instantly dead body as Betty and I were walking home one day. Even if a cat had gotten to him, there would be nothing left to find. It was getting cold out, but luckily, guinea pigs supposedly come from a place that's cold at night, so they're somewhat cold resistant. But I couldn't help but despair over the possibility that Bilbo had been eaten. As humans we're so used to failsafes-- the people I've known, and even I, have lived infuriatingly sheltered lives that we take for granted. If we get into trouble we have the police, we have care groups, psychiatrists, families, friends, hospitals. There's always hope if you're willing to look for it. Bilbo was lost, and as a domesticated guinea pig, his survival skills were next to none. He almost got eaten by a dog and sat frozen in fear.

 

When you take in an animal like that with no instinctual survival skills, it's like a pact-- you trade their independence for love, shelter, food, until the day it dies. That's just natural-- you take away something's ability to live on its own, you make sure it at least lives with your help. So it really made me mad that this happened, that Bilbo was essentially in that stranded-at-sea scenario, that no one was going to come and help him, that he might die despite the promise a human made to him, never being able to enjoy the vegetables I cut for him, or enjoy the peace of safety in his cage. That's just way too sad for me to think about. Despite the massive gamble, I went to her aunt's house, a full three days after he went missing. It would have been sooner if I didn't have anime club duties on Wednesday (a kinda' piss-poor excuse) and if I could contact her family earlier on Thursday to get their address. Betty's cousin is kind of a lazy kid. I was really mad at him for leaving a small animal unattended for an hour outside. I didn't count on him searching too hard, so I needed to make sure for myself, and in Betty's stead, since despite how important it was to her, she was too far away, which is also pretty sad.

 

So on Friday morning, I bought and packed a pack of baby carrots, packed a jacket, gloves, a headlamp, goggles, and hair ties, and made my way to her aunt's house, if even to just try and find Bilbo's corpse. After I got off the bus I had to bike the rest of the way, but I got lost and ended up wasting like two hours, finally arriving four and a half hours later after wasting all the daylight. Considering that an owl can swoop down on small mammals in a matter of seconds, I was pretty pissed off. The latter half of me being lost I was just a constant stream of curse words, but I was just hoping that Bilbo was still scurrying around somewhere and that I'd find him.

 

I ring the doorbell, her aunt says "Oh hello Allen! Do you want to eat dinner?" and I said "Maybe later" and immediately went for the back door, went out onto the porch, unpacked my stuff, suited up, and got to looking. I scattered some carrots around the back yard (a triplex backyard-- not too big) and swept the area. I asked her cousin which direction he was facing the last he saw him, since Betty told me he would tend to not turn around whenever you set him down, and just persist in one direction. I took all this into account and I spread my search to a two block radius, which is much farther than a guinea pig would probably wander. They'd already contacted the neighbors and they said they didn't find anything, but first thing I did was stand on their large wooden fence and scan the neighbors' backyards, which was insanely shady; a hooded guy with a headlamp and goggles standing on a backyard fence with a flashlight. Luckily I didn't get cops called on me. For an hour in the dark, I checked inside every bush, under all the leaves I could, got on my knees and dug up a rabbit hole, spread apart the most tangled plants, and I couldn't find him.

 

At some point after sifting through the leaves, seeing a single rabbit that made me hopeful for half a second, and learning to ignore the rustling of the leaves caused by breezes, I considered that guinea pigs poop a lot. So I thought I might look for droppings in the direction he may have wandered if he did wander from the backyard in a straight direction. I looked pretty hard for droppings-- much harder than I'd ever looked for animal poop, and then I heard a rustling. I would have ignored it, but it was coming from the neighbor's backyard, and they didn't have a tree, just dense patches of ivy. So I waited, and the second rustle I heard, I immediately went to stand on the back fence of their back yard, and I shone my flashlight in. Facing their back wall, I saw Bilbo moving around in the back left corner of their yard, in one of the most open parts of that area. This is about the dialogue I had:

 

"Oh my god. Oh my god, Bilbo, you're alright!" (climbs over fence and drops down)

"Bilbo, you're alive! Oh thank goodness." (scoops up Bilbo)

"You must be so thirsty. Oh my god. Okay, we need to get out of here."

(opens fence mechanism from inside, for some reason it's only openable from the back, which I didn't consider taking advantage of)

(gets a carrot from the carrot pack I brought)

"Here, take this! Oh my god, you're okay." (goes inside)

"Uh. I found him!"

Aunt: "You found him!?"
Cousin (from the basement): "What?! You found him?!"

"He needs water. Where is his water bottle?"

 

Her cousin got me the bottom to his cage, and I set him down inside it, then gave him some water. I took a picture and sent it to Betty. My phone camera sucks really bad though, so bear with me.

 

 

Then we got him the rest of his cage and I heaped in a small portion of carrots, one of which he immediately snatched and went underneath his shelf to eat. Then he came out, nibbled another carrot, then spent about 30 seconds drinking from his freshly filled water bottle.

 

 

He's a trooper-- we figured he'd be okay eating grass, but water's kind of hard to come by in a suburb, and it hadn't rained those three days, so he went awhile with very little water. Betty already lost hope thinking he was probably dead after the first day thinking the temperature or an animal probably got to him. I get a little bit angry at myself that my finding him was dumb luck, and that if it didn't happen just right I might have gone home and he would have died, though I was committed to search for another two hours at the very least. I'm trying not to think about that, though. I'm just really glad he's okay after so long. So yeah. The four and a half hour detour of frustration I took turned out totally worth it. Betty cried when I told her he was okay, and it was very feel-good all around.

 

Betty's aunt gave me some spicy noodles, which I ate, and then I was pretty much like "Well, finding Bilbo was literally the only reason I came here, so I should go home now..." and then I did. Despite being kinda' mad at her cousin, I didn't chew him out, but just said "Take care of the guinea pig."

 

On the bus ride there I made these Miis for Betty in case I couldn't find Bilbo. So that's an added bonus.

[Teto 2609]

You should probably keep an actual blog that people can follow because these life adventure posts are all good and I like seeing them.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Oh right. I left two pouches of carrots there explicitly for Bilbo, and Betty's mom that normally doesn't like me offered to take me to a Chinese restaurant or something, but by the time I found Bilbo, it was a little late. She thanked me over the phone, which is like a +10.

 

And yeah, I've considered doing a blog. I'm kind of lazy with stuff like that tho. ): Can't even keep a diary.

[Teto 2609]

Before I forget: If you ever needed a title for this post you'd be obligated to call it "There and Back Again".

Goodnight.

[Sayubie 405]

(puppy yeah plus points with the mom!)

(SAHA'S GANDALF)

[Necropolis 763]

Oh right. I left two pouches of carrots there explicitly for Bilbo, and Betty's mom that normally doesn't like me offered to take me to a Chinese restaurant or something, but by the time I found Bilbo, it was a little late. She thanked me over the phone, which is like a +10.

 

And yeah, I've considered doing a blog. I'm kind of lazy with stuff like that tho. ): Can't even keep a diary.

A story from the perspective of the Guinea pig would be interesting. Regardless this is even better than the version of the story you told us at the zoo

[T1g 1503]

Sahaqiel I demand you edit your post and replace all instances of Bilbo with Speedwagon.

 

Its his real name and you know it

[Sahaqiel 1232]

yes, yes i know

 

speedwagon can't die-- he's too lovable

[Sayubie 405]

My essay on you guys got a 9.2 out of 10.

I presented my first visual novel ever (playable in five minutes).

I presented it to my class, almost made the teacher cry, got hugs from classmates and did really well.

Hoooooly shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit so happy

[pheonix561 2080]

What is the visual novel and can we read it and also can we read the essay