Toxic Waste
The time is many years ago, pre-lovely Mrs. Borengasser. (She is not pre-lovely, of course, just pre-Mrs. Borengasser.)
I’m single, living in a rental house in a large city. The lovely Mrs. Borengasser-To-Be resides several hours away. I drive to visit her every weekend.
For some reason I can no longer recall, a person gives me a couple of guinea pigs for pets. They need a pen or enclosure, so, in a flash of insight, I purchase a large used baby bed, the kind with bars around it, to use as a guinea pig corral.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of bachelorhood is that you can put anything you want anywhere you want – in the sink, in the front yard, or on the roof. For the guinea pigs, I settle on the kitchen.
To keep the pen fresh and dry, I put a new layer of straw in once a week. Over the course of time, however, the surface slowly rises in height until the day arrives when there is no more room. The pen must be cleaned.
I’m not looking forward to this. But then it occurs to me that I’m in possession of a valuable commodity – guinea pig fertilizer. And the lovely Mrs. Borengasser-To-Be is in possession of a flower/vegetable garden. I decide that if I can bring this exotic fertilizer and the lovely Mrs. Borengasser-To-Be’s garden together, she will have the healthiest plants in town and will, therefore, look upon me with much favor.
I fill three enormous garbage bags with my AAA Grade guinea pig compost, toss the bags in the back of my convertible, and head for the lovely Mrs. Borengasser-To-Be’s house.
My initial clue that I have possibly made a serious error in judgment comes when I stop at the first stop light on my way out of town. Flies from a four-state area converge on me. I’m sure that many of them left a perfectly good roadkill just to share this special moment with me. On a bizarrely primitive level, I suppose this might even be taken as a compliment, but I’m in no mood to be flattered, and gun the motor.
Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I can see what looks like a storm cloud following me at 25 miles an hour. I’m still in the city, so I’m continually stopping for traffic lights and stop signs. Each time, 50,000 flies descend on me like a shroud.
It’s not until I hit the Interstate that I lose them. And, finally, several hours later, I’m spreading the fertilizer on the lovely Mrs. Borengasser-To-Be’s garden.
What I don’t realize is that the three most toxic substances known to man are plutonium, old Limburger cheese, and guinea pig manure.
The garden is dead in an hour.
Within weeks, a large hole develops in her garden that steadily deepens. It’s the China Syndrome in action – obviously from a guinea pig fertilizer meltdown. I’m certain that, even today, a team from the Environmental Protection Agency has it roped off for study.
My experience isn’t completely negative. I do learn several valuable lessons:
1. A major metropolitan area is not a good place to raise anything, except perhaps cactus and mildew. Certainly not children or guinea pigs.
2. When courting, stick to chocolate and flowers. Guinea pig fertilizer is not generally considered a romantic gift.
3. The next time we have a military conflict with another nation, forget the napalm and the cluster bombs. Guinea pig manure will work just fine.