Summer of 2019 was a difficult time for my family.
It was not a health scare, not a tough financial situation, not a rocky relationship that was bringing them down. No, it was something far worse—their precious baby boy was headed off to college on the other side of the country.
To fill the inevitable emotional void my absence would create, my sister did what any level-headed millennial would’ve done in this situation. She drove an hour to the world’s largest guinea pig rescue, went shopping, and came home with not one, but two anxious looking rodents.
Their given names were Bandito and Carta.
Bandito was bunny-white, skinny (with ample potential to grow), and a beautiful all-American guinea pig. Carta was Halloween-colored, had crazy bedhead, and was just a smidgen too ugly to be an official Abyssinian show pig (although he would’ve despised being a model anyways).
Guinea pigs have no rights, so we decided to rename them to something more tasteful, more personalized. One hot August afternoon, all four household members congregated at the dining room table for serious business. No records exist, no paperwork was filed, and no lawyer was present; you’ll just have to trust me when I say due process was conducted. Voting with nods and smiles, we unanimously agreed to the following amendments:
Bandito was to become Wilbur.
Carta was to become Winston.
Over the years, they came to be known endearingly as the bad boys.
And as you’ll soon find out, we would become family.
I’ll be the first to admit: it wasn’t love at first sight.
Guinea pigs, much like abstract art, are an acquired taste. Only the upper-class elite with a trained eye truly understand their purpose, meaning, and value.
Unfortunately, I was whisked away to start my freshman year of college before I could form a relationship with these distinguished creatures. I didn’t really mind though. I never expected to spend much time with them anyways.
But as we all know, the universe pulled a fast one and unleashed a global pandemic on us. In March 2020, I fled from campus to home, seeking refuge from the germy outside world.
At that time, my family was renting a place while my parents searched for a forever home. I really liked the temp house. It had a beautiful garden with an assortment of fruit trees, cobblestone walking paths, and little animal statues left by the previous tenant. I spent most of my waking hours in the cozy sunroom that overlooked the garden. These spaces helped me stay connected with the outside world.
The only downside about the house was that there was nowhere for me to sleep. I ended up crashing on a daybed in a foyer-esque space, in between the kitchen and the staircase.
When I moved out of my dorm, I thought I’d be returning to a life without roommates. Little did I know that in the months I was gone, a coup had been staged: the bad boys had ousted themselves out of my sister’s room and claimed larger real estate under the staircase. Conveniently, they now lay five feet away from my daybed.
Thus began my life with not one, but two roommates.
I spent a lot of time with the piggies that summer. When the weather was temperate, my sister and I would take them out to the garden where we watched them graze. To get a better view of the grass-munchers, we would spread out an old bamboo floor mat so we could lie on our stomachs and get ground level them.
We also loved to hang out in the sunroom—one or two pigs in a blanket—while we read, watched TV, or chatted on the phone with friends.
In one moment of insanity, we constructed a ramp for them to enter and exit their cage at will, commencing the free-range rat era. Winston was the only one who was bold enough to come out. He was handsomely rewarded with pellets and fruits when he did.
These experiences highlighted how vibrant and unique guinea pig personalities are. Although Wilbur had grown significantly and became quite the large boy, he always remained fainthearted and took his frustrations out with rampant displays of fragile masculinity. And don’t get me started on Winston—ever-fearless and ever-curious—the sassiest creature to roam the planet, but a true loverboy at heart. In retrospect, I feel as though Winston and I shared many of the same character traits.
From these personalities grew new nicknames. Wilbur became baby-man, though I would mostly call him b-man. My family quickly caught onto the fact that I was poking fun at Wilbur by calling him an “obese person” in Korean. They weren’t wrong. The nickname was more endearing than anything; I was proud of the fact that he had amassed so much mass by eating nothing but vegetables. On the other side of the cage, Winston became batch, just one vowel away from the obscenity he was named after and proudly embodied every single day.
Our home transformed into a sanctuary where guinea pigs ruled the sensory landscape. Notable sounds included wheeking when begging for tasty morsels, loud crunches when tearing into lettuce stems, and of course, the little gurgle-gurgles when strutting around the cage. The hay, pellets, and piggy musk turned the smellscape earthy, warm, and dare I say, slightly herbal? Yes, my roommates were indeed a little gross. But their presence brought a sense of calm and joy into our little home.
I’m forever grateful to Wilbur and Winston for the love and happiness they brought into our home over the pandemic. When the pandemic eased up and I returned to campus, my family kept me in the loop by sending me daily picture updates of what the pigs were up to. My phone would buzz with snapshots of Wilbur with green stains on his chin after devouring some lettuce, Winston taking a nap with a poop halfway out his butthole, or the two of them perched up against the cage, begging for food.
There must be hundreds of iterations of these same photos, but I loved each one. I needed the redundancy. While I was away from family, these glimpses of home were important to me. A picture of a guinea pig meant that life at home, on that particular day, had left room for simple moments of joy.
In June 2023—a few days after I graduated from college—Wilbur passed away from Lymphoma. He was a little over five years old.
We were somewhat relieved that Wilbur passed before Winston. Guinea pigs are very social creatures and Wilbur had always been the needier of the two. When Winston was out at a vet appointment or getting bathed, Wilbur would take laps around the cage searching for his roomie.
Winston did okay living on his own. I think he wanted to first see my sister’s Timothy grass project come to fruition before calling it wraps. I’m ashamed to admit that I killed the grass when I forgot to water it while my sister was away in Japan. Fortunately, Winston got to experience green heaven on earth with only a few weeks’ delay.
After annihilating the Timothy grass, Winston decided he had experienced all that he needed on this earth. In November 2023, Winston joined his best friend in guinea pig heaven.
If you want to eat healthier, get a guinea pig. You'll have to buy plenty of veggies for them. If you want to be happier, get a guinea pig. They'll win your heart over, as long as you give them a chance.
And if you want your guinea pigs to be happier, let them live with their best friend. This way, they will always have a buddy to stress-eat hay with on car rides to the vet, a companion to endure those silly Halloween costume photoshoots, and a friend to share a delicious salad dinner with, every night, without fail.
They won’t get along all the time. Conflict is natural in best friend relationships. But I promise you, even after a long-fought rumblestrutting battle, they will eventually agree to disagree, indulge in some veggies, and cozy up against each other for a nap.
I’m not sure if Wilbur and Winston loved us back. I would like to think they did.
I do know for certain that they loved each other.