ammogirl

Hmmm…well I have had this window open to post for an hour now, but then got caught up in a very serious IM conversation with Miss Devylish. As a result, I…hmm. Actually, there is no result. Quite honestly, I just wanted to throw in the part about IM-ing with Miss D so I could say that whilst we were IM-ing, she was conducting a simultaneous conversation with her friend Blake from American Idol, and by default, this means I am famous. Get your autograph requests in early.

Anyhow, the other day Jane randomly stated that instead of a puppy, she should get a hamster, and it wasn’t in that actual context, but I’m paraphrasing for you, and anyway, I’m only telling you that to segue into my OWN story about hamsters. So.

Shortly after I got back in the military (you DID know that I had gotten out at the ten year mark, right? and that I, for some reason, decided to come back in? and that I’m sometimes prone to bad decisions?) John came down to visit (we were stationed in entirely different states at this point) and on a shopping trip with the girls, bought them hamsters. Now. Let me emphasize: John was VISITING at the time. As in, his house was far, far away from MY house, which was the house the hamsters were calling home.

…okay, actually, one of them was a mouse, but that one doesn’t really feature in this story since it died like, immediately, so for continuity, they were both hamsters.

Oh, did I mention I’m completely alone tonight, due to various functions that did not include either moms or wives? And that I’m totally fine with that, because INTERNET AND WINE, and…wow, I am…depressed for myself.

Christ, I really love to ramble, don’t I?

Anyway! Hamster! So, this particular hamster was a Teddy Bear Hamster, and he (I know it was a he because of it’s ginormous mutant testicles)(and no, I didn’t LOOK, but they were sort of OBVIOUS) had one red eye and would stay up all night chewing and digging and running in his stupid wheel, and occasionally the stars would align in his world and he would escape from his cage and we would find him under Taylor’s dresser, but not until he had rummaged through all the drawers and crapped in every single one of them. Well, since I was Over It, Right Now approximately 186 years ago, in regards to having rodents for pets, this was just too much for me, but…god. Seven year old girls and their pets. You just TRY to get rid of a pet with kids that age. You have to be VERY CREATIVE. Trust me on this.

Once a week I would clean the cage out, and I hated this so bad. I hated touching the hamster to put it in his mobile play thing, I hated smelling the hamster crap, I hated scrubbing the cage, I hated the cage itself. Eventually, it got to the point that when I was cleaning the cage, I hated EVERYTHING. Flowers. Chocolate. Baby Chicks. That stupid hamster, with it’s red eye that glared balefully into my very soul, was ruining my entire existence.

We continued along in this way for some time. Weeks. Months. Eternities. Eventually Taylor had had enough of nightly wakings by rodent wheel, and the hamster was moved to the spare bathroom. I forgot to feed it, occasionally. Yet still, he lived. And lived. And lived…and then. THEN. One day, I broke. Or, rather, the cage broke, while I was cleaning it, and used hamster litter flew everywhere. You guys. This was The Day the Hamster Caused Me to Lose My Damn Mind. I cried, and sobbed, and threw things, and swore like a sailor, and yelled, and then, thankfully, my sister called, right at that very moment, and upon hearing me sound like a raving lunatic, immediately drove one hour to my house because HI, I was having a HAMSTER INDUCED BREAKDOWN.

I am totally not making this up. That fucking hamster.

One day, months later, I walked into the bathroom and the hamster was just lying there in it’s cage. I poked at it a bit, and then some more, and then stared at it’s one red eye and considered poking THAT, just to see if maybe he was taking a really deep nap, and then I sat there wondering how to tell Taylor her stupid hamster was dead. In the end, I just said “Your hamster is dead.” Then I threw the whole thing away, cage and all.

There’s no good end to that story. I mean, the story is done, I just can’t think of a way to end it with something funny or some sort of moral…wait. Yes, I can: the moral of this story is don’t buy hamsters.

Learn from this, I beg of you. Read, and learn.

Tschuss!!