BD’s home is like a three ring circus on any given day, but more so now that they have an actual menagerie. They started with the usual dog and cat, but this past Christmas, Santa, who must have been high at the time, brought the girls a turtle and a hamster. The turtle, Bob, does his turtle-y things in his tank and is fun to watch, but the hamster, Leroy, was a delight to the whole family. They loved Leroy so much that they decided they needed another hamster, so they went out and procured Jortsey, cleverly named after the uber popular denim shorts that all the kids are wearing.
Jortsey and Leroy are both males, and instead of starting a bromance, they declared full out hamster war on each other. The hamster habitat became Thunderdome; two hamsters entered, and only one was going to leave. As disappointing as it was to the entire D family, it was clear that there was no way that Jortsey and Leroy could live together under the same cage. Leroy was there first, so he had squatter’s rights. Jortsey had to pack his hamster ball and leave.
Now’s the part where my family comes in. My younger daughter, S, is in love with every hamster she has ever seen, and has spent many a day oohing and aahing over both Leroy and Jortsey. BD’s daughters decided if Jortsey had to go, then he had to go to S. BD worked hard on me, explaining how easy hamsters are to take care of, how little attention they need, how they don’t smell, and please just give it a try.
Against my better judgment, I agreed to let Jortsey move in with us. I secretly purchased a cage, a bag of treats, a bag of food, some chew toys, and a cardboard tube filled with fluff. I brought them home and showed them to my husband, who was barely on board with the plan.
“Why did you buy a bag of rat food?” he asked me.
“I didn’t. It’s hamster food,” I answered.
He held up the bag, pointing to the word rat.
“Well, I guess I have to take that back. It looked like a hamster on the bag. I guess I can’t tell a hamster from a rat.”
“How much was this toilet paper tube with the dryer lint stuffed inside?” he asked me, holding up the tube.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s going to love it.”
“How much?”
“It was less than a plastic igloo, which all the other hamsters at the store had,” I said. He put it down and stopped asking me questions.
We told the girls about the hamster a week before we got him. He was to be S’s graduation present. She finished her last year at her school and will be starting a new one in the fall. E will be starting a new school as well, but we got her an electric guitar for a graduation present. Just a tip: don’t buy your child an electric guitar unless you don’t mind listening to him or her play it.
Before we picked up Jortsey, I returned the rat food and got hamster food, and S picked out some tunnels for the cage as well as a yellow hamster ball, her favorite color. We got his cage nicely lined with wood chips, filled his little food dish and water bottle, and attached all the tunnels to the cage. Then we went over to BD’s house and brought home our little fluffy bundle of joy.
S laughed out loud the whole way home. She would giggle, then laugh, than smile, then repeat. She could not contain her pure joy. My older daughter, E, was less excited, and instead came up with all the ways the hamster could die in our home. The cats could eat him. He could get crushed under someone’s foot. He could get diarrhea from eating rat food. He could fall to his death. He could get sick and never recover. S finally asked her to stop, since she didn’t want to have nightmares about her new pet’s horrific demise.
Jortsey has adjusted well to his new cage and family. We might have confused him at first, since we changed his name to Maximus. Jortsey was a D family name. We needed a name that reflected our family, and irony is a hit around here. He has lived with us for a week now, and the novelty has yet to wear off. He is the first one S greets in the morning, and the last one she kisses good night. She is totally in love, and it appears to be mutual. When she opens his cage, he always comes out to see her. He does not do that for the rest of us. The rest of us have experienced the powerful force of hamster jaws clamping down on a finger tip.
Maximus’s turn-ons include: the nest he made by weaving wood chips into the dryer fluff; kisses on the nose; sunflower seeds; the yellow hamster ball; and pooping in E’s hands. His turn-offs include: being pulled out of his tunnel; being pulled out of his nest; being pulled off of the hamster wheel; and being placed in a plastic bin so he can sit on the couch with the family and watch TV.
The cats love to watch Maximus in his cage. They will sit outside of it for hours, staring and waiting. They have not yet turned against him and seem more curious than hamstercidal. They are not the only ones who sit and watch him. Every night, after the kids go to bed, I slink into the room where we keep his cage, sit on a stool, and watch him sleep. He senses me there and pokes his little nose out of the fluff. Sometimes he will waddle over and say hello, and sometimes he reburies himself. It is better than a television show. Usually, my husband joins me, grinning much like S did on that first drive home. He always wanted a hamster, but his mom wouldn’t let him have one.
That cardboard tube with the fluff? That was the best $1.99 I ever spent.
1 comment:
Maximus is very cute, and the article was very funny! Poor Keith, he should enjoy life a little more, and maybe make up for the things he missed out on as a kid. Not unlike the rest of us... wink, wink.
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