Mocha

It was a day that will live forever in the annals of family lore. 

I said “yes” to a Guinea Pig. 

Usually, I am the one responsible for trapping varmints, humanely if possible, and bringing them out of the house. Naturally, I was the last person to agree to buy one and bring one, however furry and cuddly, into the house.

But the timing was right. 

In our kitchen, my wife and son stared back and forth at each other conspiratorially. They were nervous, waiting for the other to take the lead. 

“We have a question, dad,” he began. 

“Oh yeah?” I said.

And then, in that unique kid way, my son testified for several minutes to how responsible he’s become, how is tooth is loose because he’s older, and—most curiously—how his new baby sister, due to arrive in September, will leave the males in the house outnumbered.   

I looked at my wife. She was nodding! It was as if this was a rehearsed script.

“We went to the pet store to get Riley’s dog food,” she said.

“Yes, thank you. So where is it?”

“Well, we kind of got distracted.”

My son then pined about the limited opportunity we had to bring home the world’s gentlest, most snuggliest Guinea Pig. “We have to go today too or else someone else might scoop him up.”

“Like a predator?”

“No. Another family!”

I told them we’d just go take a look.

“Seriously?” said my wife. As parents, we’re so used to feigning surprise and enthusiasm, it was refreshing to see her genuinely shocked. 

“Why not.”

It was over already. And I knew it. 

But how could I agree?

As a future-tripping alcoholic, I don’t think of purchasing a Guinea Pig, I think of the hundreds of dollars of Guinea Pig paraphernalia we’ll just have to come with. I think of cleaning the cage often, the smell of caged rodent saturating my bedroom. And I think of becoming its main caregiver in a manner of weeks, assuming my son will lose interest in it the way kids lose interest in Christmas toys by New Years Day.

Of course, I have another side to me too. I’m impetuous, thrill-seeking. I’m capable of acting without any thought or concern for long-term consequence. Less so as I grow older, but flashes of the river-boat gambler are part of my makeup. In fact, most of my signs of depression come when there is a pronounced lack of excitement in my life. 

Prior to that fateful day, the day I said yes to something I have roundly rejected in the past, I had the weekend to myself. 

As I always do when left to my own devices, I filled it with activity. Sponsorship, meetings, fellowship, yes, but also projects at home and writing assignments. 

I have an insatiable need to keep busy. Needless to say, I don’t idle well. 

I don’t look forward to vacations, unless I know I will be afforded chunks of time to write and read—writing and reading being my sober calling and therefore my life’s avocation. 

But clearing a weekend for me to just write and read is not enough. I have to fill it with other projects. In order to work, the writing and reading need to be an accompanying piece to my life. I don’t write well if I’m not living well. And I can’t read if I’m distracted by all the things I should be doing instead. 

So the weekend before I said yes to a Guinea Pig I was to install a new shelf in the kitchen, a place to store our keys and alarm system.

Sounds simple right? 

Well, your humble narrator, this clean and sober drug addict and alcoholic, also wanted to repurpose an old cabinet he came across. Leave it to me to turn a simple shelf into an HGTV home improvement show.

All week I had prepped the raw material so I could install it that weekend. My son, the consummate shape-shifter, was happy to play the role of apprentice.

With my family gone, I would finish the project and then, in between some meetings and talks with other sober folk, write something, or read huge swaths of the epic Frederick Douglass biography I just started. 

Would that it were so simple. 

To give you a taste of the complications I faced without reliving past trauma, there are six cans of gray-scale paint in our basement, each approximating the paint color in the kitchen. But, upon spreading each on the wall, not one was a perfect match. 

I finally got the thing mounted and finished moments before my family returned, without a page written or read. 

What’s more, in the two days of frantic toil, I must have forgotten about a few basic essentials such as drinking water. I became bed-ridden with a headache for 24 hours. My wife, a gifted nurse, brought me back to health. 

And it was then, my first time out of bed in a day, that I stood in the kitchen and listened to my son pander to my rodent sympathies. 

Maybe I said yes because I was just happy to have a clear head. 

Or maybe I said yes because my wife and I set out to do nothing—well, as close to nothing as we’ve ever done—this summer. Maybe I said yes to satisfy the thrill-craving I can’t ever seem to shake. 

All that matters to my son—and what has quickly become the stuff of family summer legend—I said yes.  

All that was left to do was the name the critter. 

My wife: “what’s something that is black with one white stripe?”

Me: “How about mocha?”

“I like that.”

“Do you want to spell it like the drink? Or with a K like the Yemeni coffee guru? Maybe just M-O-K-A to be hip, like Nico.” I’m the overthinker in the house.

“Who cares how you spell it? Guinea Pigs can’t read anyway.”

A fellow poet Jon Donne once wrote that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Thank God for Guinea Pigs to help us get back on track.