Today, on my day off, I got up at that time of the morning reserved for airport trips, fitness fanatics and hungover vomiting. I then chose my outfit in the knowledge that there was a 98% chance of me getting covered in pee in the next few hours.

Yes it was time for the vet. 

My pet guinea pig had started peeing blood on Saturday night and after a frantic phone call to the emergency on call vet and an even more frantic reaction to the quote she gave me for an emergency house call we decided to leave it until first thing Monday morning to bring her in when the vets reopened. I watched her like a hawk all day Sunday until I was pretty sure that my constant staring and poking and temperature checking was more distressing to her than the blood pee. 

Monday morning came and my awful driving, combined with me spending more time checking on parsley than looking at the road, mixed with her terror of being in the car left us both a couple of nervous wrecks as we sat in the car outside the vets waiting for them to open. Knowing full well what would happen but hating hearing her in distress, I picked her up for a cuddle. Of course within a few minutes she had calmed down but not until after I had experienced the warm feeling on my leg of a tiny animal peeing an unnaturally large amount of nervous pee onto me.

Just in time for the open sign to be flipped around in the vets window.

And so I walked into the vets with a whimpering guinea pig, a large very obvious pee stain on my crotch and a strong smell of urine wafting from my legs. To make things even better, I was informed that the actual vet wouldn’t be in for another hour but that I was welcome to leave Parsley with them for the hour so that I could go and get a coffee or look around the shops. I wondered to myself which choice would be more appropriate while covered in guinea pig pee? I choose the shops, thinking that no one would notice if I kept walking around.

As it was so early, the shop was only just opening as I got to it and I hoped that maybe at this time of the morning I would have the place to myself to browse.  Unfortunately for me another early riser walked through the door a second after me. Self consciously I tried to cover the pee stain on my crotch with my handbag. Unsuspecting of my crotch pee situation, she gave me a big friendly Hello! I smiled politely back and scampered off down the nearest aisle. I spent the next 20 minutes playing cat and mouse with this extremely enthaustic early morning shopper. Every aisle I walked into she was already there, if I found an empty aisle to linger in she was soon upon me! She was finding this awfully entertaining until she finally walked downwind of me and my secret was revealed…

I returned to the vets office early in shame, my face blushing as dark as the pee stain. After some tests, the vet prescribed her some antibiotics and after me enquiring on the state of her general health she informed me that yes, Parsley is ‘on the chunky side’.
So after a stressful and expensive morning, I finally returned home, fat guinea pig in one hand, antibiotics in the other hand and a nice smelly pee stain inbetween. 

On one hand, my week can only get better from here. On the other hand I now need to figure out how to give antibiotics to a guinea pig…!