Choccy the guinea pig
When my other half's cousin was younger, he was given a long haired multi-coloured guinea pig (bits of him were brown and hence the name) on Christmas Day and much excitement ensued. Unfortunately, at some point during the joviality the cousin was holding the guinea pig in his arms but lost control and dropped him on his head.

Now the guinea pig apparently looked alright after the fall, but the next day Aunty and Uncle found poor Choccy dead in his cage. A period of panic came over them and rather than teach their child the facts of life, they decided to go and buy another Guinea Pig because he probably wouldn't notice (this happened to me when I pointed out that my old Goldfish had lasted 8 years that I won at a fair, but my mum had just simply been replacing them when they kept kicking the bucket).

So Aunty and Uncle go to the pet store where they had bought Choccy to find a replacement, but the festive season had meant the store was in short supply. There were no long haired Guinea Pigs to be found nor any with any brown colour in their fur. Unbelievably they still bought a new Guinea Pig, but they had a cunning lie to reason why it looked so different.

So when cousin sees the very different looking Guinea Pig, what do they tell him? They tell him that Santa had taken "Choccy" away because he had become ill. They proceed to tell him that as part of the remedy, Santa had shaved "Choccy" and these were simply the colours found on the short fur of the Guinea Pig. This reasoning had obviously been convincing as cousin never questioned anything that was said.

Finally, fast forward over a decade and I was told the story for the first time by my other half. We happened to see cousin a few days letter and I was mocking him for believing that Santa had healed his Guinea Pig and that he'd in fact dropped it on it's head. Turned out he never knew that Choccy wasn't the original Choccy (despite not being brown!).

Sorry for length etc etc.

R
(nospoon The Olympigs would have been more entertaining., Fri 22 Aug 2008, 19:15, Reply)