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I’ll never forget the day I brought Hambone home. He had pink eyes and silky white hair and the cutest buck teeth–and I thought he was the sweetest guinea pig ever.

My grandma Dot lived with us and she had somewhat different feelings about the whole endeavor. Hambone’s entrance into our lives was met with stalwart denial on grandmother’s part. She was terrified of any creature that scurried and was convinced that Hambone, in actuality, was a large rat intent on breaking out of his cage.

When grandma realized that convincing us to give Hambone away was a mere pipe dream, she settled in with grim determination, prepared to wait it out, her lips pursed in a tight line. She would often relate that rodents were skilled at chewing through caging materials. “They never quit gnawing . . . you see.”

I thought that if I could just show her how harmless Hambone was her fears would be laid to rest. With that in mind, I approached grandmother one afternoon, with Hambone hidden away in my hands. I waved the little creature under her nose, assuring her all the while of his sweetness and enjoining her to take a closer look.

Grandma, somewhat predictably–I think now in hindsight–rocketed out of the chair and ended up standing on her very tippy toes to get as far away from him as possible. “Ooh . . . take him away! Take him away! Oooohhhhh!”

Only after she had extracted a promise from me that I would never commit this foolishness again did she settle down and quit shaking.

And it didn’t end there.

I got into the habit of stopping by the local grocery store and picking up boxes of lettuce for Hambone to chew his way through. Hambone, being the wily creature he was, soon made an astute connection: the sound of the fridge door opening meant that, a short while later, juicy lettuce miraculously appeared in his cage. Hambone demonstrated his zeal for this concept by oinking enthusiastically each time someone went into the fridge.

Unfortunately, grandma spent most of her day cooking and preparing meals, which necessitated repeated forays into the refrigerator for ingredients, so she was subjected to Hambone’s incessant oinking, which, I believe, played a role in grandma’s exodus from our house. Even if she managed to forget “that horrible rodent” his piercing “Ooh-uh? ooh-uh? ooh-uh?’s” reminded her that she was in imminent peril.

An impasse was reached the day that Hambone did indeed escape from his cage. Convinced that Hambone was lurking behind a corner ready to gnaw on her ankles sent grandmother into a psychological frenzy. With her worst fears realized, she chose the sanity-saving course and moved out and onward to safer quarters.

Further Reading

Kitty and Grandmother’s Pearls–before Hambone, grandma had to contend with Kitty, who knew grandma hated cats . . .