It was the Fall, again. The autumn sounds filled the air, as did the cold rain. With all our birds dead and Christmas coming, Geoff was campaigning for a hamster. Not just any hamster, but a Teddy-bear hamster. These were special because they were extremely fluffy and kind of looked like those Star Trek tribble creatures except they had eyes, ears, mouths, and tails. None of this caught my interests. All I cared about was getting my Oscar Goldman, exchangeable fembot face, exploding briefcase office set.
You see, Geoff already had Steve Austin the Six Million Dollar man , so his life was complete. I really needed Oscar.
For Geoff being an older brother sucked. Whatever he got, I got… in a different color. Sometimes that sucked for me too, I mean its bad enough dressing twins up the same, but it wasn’t until University that mom stopped buying Geoff and I the same clothes.
This particular Christmas it worked in my favor.
The grass was brown. The trees were bare. It was Christmas morning in Ontario. After breakfast we come running down and Geoff freaks out.
Not only did he get one hamster, he got two…or so he thought. As he approached the second cage(fortunately my parents were sober enough the night before not to wrap the actual hamsters), he was stunned to see Scottie on the name tag. This was bad. This was very bad. Of course he should of known, because the second cage was a different color. And to make matters worse, he got the female hamster and I got the boy! Score. A live animal, at my age! Geoff was devastated. Names were debated and settled upon promptly. Geoff’s was to be Veronica, because she was the cuter of Archie’s girlfriends in our dark-haired opinion…plus she had a sexier voice in the cartoon version. I couldn’t decide on a name…until I opened my Oscar Goldman, exchangeable fembot face, exploding briefcase office set. Now the answer was obvious. His name was to be Barney. Named of course after Steve Austin’s best friend, and one of the exchangeable fembot faces for the coolest toy in the world.
These new teddy-bear hamsters turned out to be the most awesome toy yet. And to top it off, it felt really cool when I let him wander between my clothes and body. Keep in mind I was only 9 and didn’t know the social ramifications of such behavior. I’m not talking any Richard Gere stuff. Just some harmless wandering through the sleeves.
We even got one of those balls you put the little guys in so they can wander freely. Oh, and a few notes for any future hamster ball owners: Never kick the hamster ball. Never spin the hamster ball. And never, ever play with them near stairs.
A little while after Christmas my parents went on their standard winter vacation and Geoff and I decided to let Barney and Veronica have a sleepover. Now at the time it seemed like everything had gone fine until a little while later Veronica got sick for a while and then one morning she had multiplied! Geoff and I thought this was the coolest! My parents had paid for two hamsters and we now had 12! What a deal! We had to try this again.
My parents weren’t nearly as excited. Not only did they now have 12 smelly creatures for us to wreak havoc with, but they also had to explain to us how this had happened. I think the hardest part for my mom was explaining why Veronica had 10 babies while she (mom) was only capable of having one kid at a time. Dad refused to comment.
Now there is no way we were going to be allowed to keep all of them. For the next little while, whenever we needed to give a present, our friends got big boxes with tubes sticking out of them. It did not take long before these same friends did everything they could to stop us from dumping Barney & Veronica’s offspring in their unwelcoming hands. So we still ended up with 6 or 7 which meant buying all those really cool cage extensions with all kinds of tubes and mini penthouse apartments and a years supply of wood shavings. Now these critters may be small but they smell big! The problem with having this many hamsters is when you clean their cages their is no where to really put them so we would just let them wander around our rooms…big mistake. I’ll explain …
My Dad built houses for a living. Almost every house we lived in, he had built, or to be more accurate, was still in the process of being built. Usually until we moved. This meant living without any covers to the hundreds of ventilation shafts. It didn’t take long before our little furry friends fell on in and began to explore the inner workings of our home. Sometimes they were gone for an hour, sometimes a week. We’d be in the basement and all of a sudden hamster caca would drop on our heads and there would be one of our very hungry and desperate lost friends. Now if you haven’t figured it out yet, these vents are used to heat our home which means eventually they lead to a furnace. A really big, hot, furnace. I can’t remember which hamster found the furnace first but I do remember what they looked like when we pulled them out. Perfectly toasted, lightly buttered sponge cake (just like granny’s)…but stiffer.
This was how most of our remaining hamsters died, including Veronica. This meant we could no longer practice the new mating ritual our mom had so carefully explained(and subsequintly banned). Now Barney was not going to become a victim of the evil furnace so I decided to let him go and join his fellow creatures in the out of doors. Needless to say I was totally unaware of how short his life span would be among these less domesticated creatures. Especially during a Canadian winter…
