A simple story about rock climbing and a guinea pig.

Hi all!
Not long ago I read a book by a fairly famous online publicist Slava Se and really wanted to try to write something in the same style. And on my beloved Stopgame there is a community about literature, that’s how lucky it was!

Sorry for being off topic again on this portal. But I’m really trying to hold back! I no longer wrote to you about sexism in physics, the film “Panfilov’s 28” and the Russian weapons museum in Tula. I hope a little story from personal experience will not hurt you here. As always, I look forward to your feedback, advice and comments ^_^

So, a simple story about rock climbing and a guinea pig

This Saturday I finally managed to fulfill a long-standing (about a month and a half) dream – to go to the climbing wall. I always thought there was something philosophical about learning new things. Your horizons expand, you learn a lot of interesting things about yourself. Firstly, for example, the fact that you have muscles in the most unexpected places. And most of these places are on the fingers. Secondly, that fingers are needed to perform almost all household operations. For example, take off your pants. Or put on pants. For those who don’t understand what I’m getting at, I recommend climbing for a couple of hours and then trying to write a derogatory comment on this post.

Coach Alexey was very polite and tactful. “How did you find out about our club??- he asked. “Announcements on social networks? Advertising? One of my friends told me?“Well… I was just sitting at home in the evening and suddenly thought about going to the climbing wall,” I honestly admitted. Alexey tried not to show surprise. He looked both like a first-year student and like a weather-beaten Soviet geologist who had just returned from a dangerous expedition. “17 years of coaching experience,” read the announcement behind. My built-in facial age recognizer said he started working here two years before he was born.

First we started doing warm-ups, https://nongamstopsites.uk/offshore-casinos/ then we crawled along the machine, clinging to the wall like Spider-Man, then we learned how to tie climbing knots. And finally, we mastered climbing up the simplest part of the route and then descending on a safety rope.

The third attempt was the most successful. Well, or the most unsuccessful – depending on how you look at it. Having climbed to a record height for myself, I suddenly fell into a panic and realized that I simply could not let go of the wall that had suddenly become so familiar and fall down on a rope into the treacherous unknown. It seemed like there were only kilometers of thin air to the floor. It was also not possible to climb over the top of the climbing wall and rush off into the sunset. The instinct of self-preservation suggested the only reasonable option – to tightly cling to the ledges and wonder whether it would be very shameful to shout at the coach to climb in and take me out of here. In the end I decided that yes, it was too shameful, and simply hung on the wall, humbly awaiting my fate.

Downstairs began to worry. They thought that in a heroic impulse I wanted to climb even higher, but I couldn’t decide what to grab onto. The partner shouted "Right"! Take right!». The trainer highlighted a suitable ledge with a laser pointer. I tried my best to pretend that everything was fine and hoped that sooner or later they would get tired and leave. Then I will ask some stranger to take me away from here, and when I get on solid ground I will immediately run away, so that I will never have to look this person in the eyes.

If I don’t get along with the savior, perhaps under the weight of the body my fingers will stretch and sag, so that I will gradually get closer to the floor. Or, over time, the whole structure will decay, and I will quietly fall down like an autumn leaf. There’s no rush, they’ll get by at work without me, my mom will look after the cats. At the thought of orphaned cats, I became sad and went limp on the safety rope. My partner quickly lowered me to the ground. He sympathized that I was unable to pull to the right and pull myself up to the desired ledge. “It’s okay, next time you’ll get to the top,” he encouraged.

I assented and sadly shook my head: “Wow! Almost missed it". The words of my former boss suddenly came to mind that I react to stress like a guinea pig – I open my eyes and freeze in the hope that the danger will resolve on its own. I once had a guinea pig, so the analogy made sense. I remember when I picked her up from the store, the seller warned that the psyche of pigs is very vulnerable, they can even die from fright: “So don’t expect her to immediately start playing and frolicking.”. Most likely, she will remain motionless for several hours, getting used to the new environment.»

It turned out that a few hours of immobility was too optimistic a forecast. Upon returning home, I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten about my older brother, who celebrated his birthday at our house. “You know my friends,” he told his mother. – “I just don’t want the kids to get scared.”. It was very thoughtful. My neighbors are no longer children, but I’m sure even they were scared that day. What can we say about the unfortunate animal, which was not only torn out of its usual habitat, but also immediately plunged into the fumes of revelry?.

It seemed that the pig had stood like a pillar for at least a day. She froze in the store when she was immersed in the cage and since then she has not moved, even if you poke her finger in her side. She just sighed and looked sadly, without blinking. She was probably going over her simple sins in her head, wondering why she had suffered such a punishment. When I had almost come to terms with the fact that instead of a pet I would only have a statue of him, my mother offered to slip her a bunch of dill. At first I was skeptical about the idea – in the cage and around it there were already scatterings of compound feed, which I showered on the animal, trying to breathe life into it. But it’s much more difficult to resist the aroma of fresh greenery – almost immediately a cautious slurping sound was heard, and life began to get better.

Amazingly gentle creatures, these pigs! Even their claws need to be cut not just any way, but with extreme caution. Did you know that they have blood vessels in their claws, and if you cut too close to the root, blood will flow? I know, because I decided to approach the matter with all care and first Googled the algorithm. The picture showed a diagram of the location of the vessel, the approximate length of the cut, and an animal with a bleeding paw, whose owner was too careless and quick to give a pedicure. The pig from the last drawing looked straight into your soul. I got into it. And I made a decision in my favorite style – I’ll just wait, maybe it will somehow happen on its own.

When the sound of claws on the floor began to wake me up from sleep, I slipped a decent-sized log into the cage, hoping that it would help sharpen my claws. The pig sharpened its teeth on it, roared around the cage at night and generally enjoyed life in every possible way. When it became impossible to hide Freddy Krueger from my family, I sighed, put him in a cat carrier and took him thirty kilometers to the city to the veterinarian. The veterinarian was somewhat surprised by the request, but quickly dealt with the matter in a couple of minutes. I tried hard to pretend that I was just passing by with a guinea pig by chance and let me take a look, I think! “By the way, you can buy special scissors at our veterinary pharmacy,” he advised. "Seriously?- I was surprised. – “Thank you so much.”!"The doctor looked out of the office door to check if I had found the pharmacy. I smiled and bought a nail clipper. When the time came for the next pedicure, I had to choose a day for the trip when another doctor was working on shift. So I got a second nail clipper.

The third one didn’t show up because the guinea pig then died. But that’s a completely different story.