The Hamster Story

If there's one thing the Internet isn't lacking, it's people who enjoy posting pictures of their pets. Normally I just sit back and laugh at these weirdos who've obviously been shunned by the members of their own species, forcing them to look to the animal kingdom for companionship, but if I really wanted to be honest with myself -- and with you as well -- I'd have to admit a secret: I'm jealous of these maladroit social lepers. I myself can never own a pet again. I don't think it's a coincidence that my sisters don't own any pets either.

When my sisters and I were in grade school we asked our parents if we could get hamsters. So one Saturday afternoon Dad took us to the mall where we picked out two male hamsters from the pet store. I don't remember much about the hamsters before the Event. I'm not even sure what we named them. In fact, the two of them just sitting around doing nothing all day -- they were really fucking boring. That would all change soon enough.

You're wondering what the Event was. Simply put, the Event was a miracle. Notwithstanding that we'd picked out two male hamsters from the pet shop, one morning we woke up to find a litter of baby hamsters in the cage. How is it that we never noticed one of the hamsters was pregnant with probably ten buns in the oven? Like I said, the hamsters were boring -- I think we stopped paying attention to them after the first two weeks. Plus, my sisters and I weren't very bright.

Remember I told you I don't remember much about the hamsters before the Event? My memory is sketchy regarding events after the, uh, Event as well, but that's probably because I've repressed so many of the harrowing memories. Back then, if my eight-year-old self knew what therapy was, I would have signed myself up for sessions immediately.

It wasn't that we physically lost one of the baby hamsters -- no, that wasn't it. (A week or two had passed without incident. The babies had fur now, and when we picked one up out of the cage it managed to wriggle free from our grubby little hands. It dropped to the floor and scurried quickly to freedom, and at night I was sure I could hear it wretchedly clawing at the walls.) No, in retrospect that particular hamster turned out to be the lucky one, God help us. Initially, my sisters and I were delighted by this turn of events. What could be more novel than baby hamsters? What chumps we were. I still remember the day my sister Kelly and I were standing around looking at the cage, and how our little minds reeled with horror when the mother grabbed one of the babies and started to gnaw on its leg. The baby screamed for a while, and then it stopped, and then it became totally stiff.

On that particular day, that fat, feral little ball of fur robbed me of my childhood.

I guess mother hamsters will eat their young if she becomes pregnant at a young age and isn't mature enough to deal with raising a litter, or if the litter is simply too big and she wants to pare it down to a manageable size, or if any of the babies appears to be sickly. Ask a Chinaman and I'm sure he'd find it reasonable. At the time my sisters and I didn't know what the fuck was going on. Thankfully, our father knew what to do. It was the pet store's fault for selling us what they wrongfully claimed were two male hamsters, so he was going to cart the entire cage back to the store and return them all. "Thanks, Dad!" my sisters and I gratefully declared. What chumps we were.

Oh, wait, did I mention this all took place when we lived in Dallas? In the summer? Because this bit of information is pertinent to the story. We were kids, and my dad was a young minister on the go. He was a busy guy with meetings to attend, a congregation to minister to, the elderly and infirm to comfort. Plus he was sort of an absent-minded guy to begin with. I just want to know why the grisly discovery had to be made while we were all in the car. If fate were kind, my sisters and I would have been spared having to witness yet another hamster holocaust. In fact, I think it was one of my sisters who first said something about the smell, an observation that caused my dad to immediately pull over the car, get out and pop the trunk.

In my father's defense he felt terrible about what happened. I'm not sure how long they had been chilling in the trunk of my dad's car, but I know it was a matter of days. I remember some of them were pressed up against the wall of the cage, and another one was getting its last sip from the water bottle. But you know what, words aren't enough to convey this chilling scene. Just take a look below:

Sometimes late at night, I swear I can still hear scratching coming from inside the walls of my bedroom.

Posted by john at March 28, 2006 02:16 PM