Hamsters

Today I was thinking about hamsters. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this as I was working on a word puzzle sent to us from our friends in Los Gatos. Here it is: come up with the name of an animal where part of the name is actually that of another animal. The example given by Jared was: CAT FISH. I think we are going to have a fair list, which I promise I will compile and list on this blog, but back to the hamsters.

When I was in fourth grade my neighbors down the street had a hamster that had babies. After sufficient begging my parents let me have one which I kept in my attic bedroom. It was a TEDDYBEAR HAMSTER. I named it, wait for it, “Teddy”. This hamster was a real bastard hamster. Everyday I would reach into its cage to pet it and it would bite me, hard enough to draw blood, everyday. My parents told me to keep handling it so that it would get used to me and eventually stop biting. Everyday, I would get home from school, reach in to pet it, get bit, and cry. This went on for what seemed like months.

One day in the summer, I came home from the pool and dutifully reached into the cage to pet “Teddy”. I had gotten pretty jittery about the whole thing, after being bitten so many times. I eased my hand slowly toward the sleeping thing to try once again. As my finger tips reached his little furry back I was prepared to jerk my hand back, but was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t move at all. I quickly reached around his body to lift him up and suddenly realized, to my horror, that he was cold and hard. I dropped his dead body and it fell to the floor, bouncing a little, with the sound of wood on wood. I cried.

I went downstairs to my parents, tears streaming down my face. I was sad that the thing was dead, I wanted a new pet. How about some SEA MONKEYS or a RAT SNAKE or even a GUINEA PIG?