Get your children pets, they say. It will teach them about
empathy and death, they say.
So here I am walking across Brighton with the MOTHER of all
hangovers, carrying a guinea pig with a gammy eye, chatting to the inside of a plastic
IKEA box cooing ‘its going to be OK, you’re going to be OK,’ on the way to the
vets. Unaware that to the untrained eye, I actually look like a mental who’s wearing
last nights clothes, doing the walk of shame and chatting away to a plastic
box.
BUT LET'S BACK UP A MOMENT…
24 hours previously…
I’m off out with my sister. We’re not just any old off out. We're
going to see Take That. We’ve seen them last year at O2. It was fun. We had
shit seats where you couldn’t even see the screens, let alone the three remaining
artistes, and we’re not sure if they are down to just two this year, but FUCK
IT we’re out.
And as long as Gary’s still there, who my sis has fancied since way
back, when he wasn’t cool and looked more like Pat Sharp, then we're laughing.
So we rock up to the O2. All full of gin in a tins, and
decide to go for dinner first.
Pizza Express and Prosecco obvs. Cos we’re posh.
And then cocktails- naturally. Cos we’re proper posh.
When we’re sure that All Saints or whoever have definitely finished
their ‘come back tour cos we’re skint’ warm up act, we head to the arena.
Have our tickets scanned by security.
And scanned again.
And again.
A big red ‘these guys are scammers or pose a threat’ light
flashes ominously over our heads.
‘Where did you get the tickets?’ the security guard asks me.
‘They’re legit,’ I reply, two bottles of prosecco in,
sounding like a middle class Delboy.
She tries again, and again the crimmy red light flashes.
Her boss comes over and looks at the ticket, and says, ‘you
know these are for next Thursday not today?’ And walks off shaking his head at us like we’re proper dickheads.
You have to be fucking joking.
I booked these months ago, wrote Thursday down in my diary
but, as it transpired, the WRONG FUCKING THURSDAY.
What were we meant to do?
What would you do?
Well we obviously got absolutely slaughtered on the roof bar
at the O2 with the plan, the absolute plan, to leave before the Take That fans
who’ve got the right day filter out.
As me and my sis are discussing the possibility of buying a
barn to convert that we’re almost definitely never going to do in France, we look down
to see a swarm of ants which are the TT fans heading for the tube that
we’ll never make.
So. I stay in London after a brief, but unhappy, text exchange
with my husband, as now I’ve missed the last train home due to the FUCKING TAKE
THAT FANS.
I wake up the next morning at my sister's, remembering that
the guinea pig has a gammy eye.
It’s not just gammy, it looked fucking dreadful when I left
her in the evening.
I quickly borrow some of my sister's make up, it's like polishing a turd but I can't look any worse that I already do.
OR CAN I?
The powder isn't powder, it's bronzer. I only notice how tanned I am as I stop at the garage on route for an emergency can of Coke and see my reflection. I look like Richard Madeley. Jesus Fucking Christ.
So I attempt to wipe the worst of it off on my sleeve as I google guinea pig
poorly eye on my phone, and am met with a barrage of grim pictures which all scream, ‘take
them to the vets immediately.’
I ring the nearest vets to me as I slope off to get on the train that stops at ever station on the way back
to Brighton, naturally.
A quick teeth brush and I realise I have ten minutes to hot
foot it across town for the appointment. No time for me to change, and no way of transporting a
guinea pig other than emptying a box of Lego and carrying her in that, as my
husband has the car.
And off I go. Hangover rattling around in my brain and a
freaked out guinea pig with a suspected eye ulcer trying desperately to climb
out of a shallow box.
‘Calm down,’ I say.
‘It’s going to be OK,’ I say.
As I pass all the dog walkers and old people out for a
potter who think I'm chatting to myself, I wonder, ‘Shit me. Can today get any
worse?’
YES.
YES IT ACTUALLY CAN.
So I turn up at the vets and sit in the waiting room.
I’m 100% regretting not bringing a bottle of water, and the
only thing remotely drinkable in the room is a dog drinking bowl. It looks overwhelmingly enticing.
Then someone shouts, ‘Snuffles. Snuffles.’
What kind of a fucking name is that? I think.
On third shout I realise that’s the name of my guinea pig,
and l shuffle into the surgery.
I place her on the table and am asked a series of questions I
can’t answer.
How old is she?
I dunno.
Is she eating well?
I don’t know either. We have five guinea pigs. I don’t know who
eats what.
'OK, return to the waiting room.'
'With Snuffles?' I ask.
He mumbles.
'Shall I take her with me?' I ask again.
I don’t know how these things work. They’ve already said it
will cost forty-six quid to see her. Surely that involves more than just mumbling at
me for that price.
I go to leave her on the table.
‘TAKE SNUFFLES WITH YOU,’ the Vet shouts after me.
Yep. Heard that, thanks.
So I wait in the waiting room and then am finally called to
the reception desk.
‘She’s adorable,’ the receptionist sighs, ‘I just love guinea pigs. We’d pay anything to
look after our dear pets,’ she smiles, as she passes me the bill.
Eighty-six fucking
quid.
‘How much?!’ I exclaim.
‘Well, we’d pay anything to look after our animals, wouldn't we?' she
repeats.
‘But that is four times the price I paid for the actual guinea pig!’ I scoff
in total horror.
The receptionist looks at me pityingly and shakes her head in dismay at the woman next to
me with the dog wearing a lampshade.
So, the moral of this story is a) check the dates before you
head off to a concert cos no-one gives you a prize for turning up a week early.
b) there is no such thing as a cheap pet. Before you know it, your relatively
simple life has been resorted to squirting drops in a tiny guinea pig's eye six
times a day, because-
c) your kids only like their pets when their mates come
around. For the other 97% of the time, it’s you looking after these creatures,
hangover or not.
HAPPY UPDATE PART 1
Steve from Lowestoft bought the Take That tickets from me off Gumtree and his wife is OVER THE MOON.
HAPPY UPDATE PART 2
Snuffles' eye is nearly better. I never have to squirt what looks like PVA glue in her eye again. Ever.
Hopefully.