This Should Explain a Thing or Two About Me

When I was a kid, we had hamsters. A hamster is a great pet for a kid - practically disposable, just one step up from Tamagotchis. They're cute, but they don't do much, and just as soon as you've gotten used to them, boom! They die. And they join the other ten or so hammies eternally dirtnapping in the backyard. And I was basically OK with that - it was deeply saddening when Hammie Heathcliff kicked it, but after that, I was toughened up and better able to deal with the sad reality of mortality. In fact, I credit poor, brave Hammie's passing as helping me to deal well with the death of my great-aunt, the first human death I was cognizant of.

Well, to be perfectly frank, my equanimity when getting that news might have had something to do with the fact that my sole perception of my great-aunt was of a woman who passed the time swearing at people and picking her toes. But anyway!

The memorable deceased included a a couple of hammies, one of whom excaped and drowned in the toilet, and the other refused pellets and water and soon passed as well. This was a great tragedy in my young life, so teRrible and romantic, it was not soon to be gotten over. But of course, I was eight, so when Mom suggested that we go back to the mall and pick out some new ones, I was game. Especially when she threw in the added incentive of Burger King.

Naturally, after the great love my previous hamster compadres had shown each other, I was hoping to replicate the experience (sans death). Sadly, this second set wasn't quite so copacetic. They fought constantly; when they weren't sleeping, their cage was a-rockin with spat after spat. But even that I was willing to excuse (surely sometimes brothers fight too) (or sisters, who the hell knows with those things) until one day my brother bullied me into cleaning the cage EVEN THOUGH IT WAS HIS TURN, and I went upstairs, grumbling, only to find one of the hamsters lying still and quiet and the other running about frantically. Curious, I lifted the lid, and found

A HEADLESS HAMSTER

I flung the lid down and ran screaming, naturally. And my brother was called into action despite all his best efforts, to fish out the body and give it the proper ceremonial burial. The remaining hamster apparently liked the taste of meat a whole lot, because we couldn't feed the thing without it jumping up and trying to chew off a finger or two. So, sadly, it ended up starving to death.

And then we tossed it in the garbage and called it a day on the whole hamster thing.