For example the hamster. I've never seen a happy hamster. They spend all day mindlessly sleeping, awaiting the nighttime. When nighttime finally rolls around -- or more accurately, early morning -- they continuously search for escape. With all the hamsters that I've had, their favorite activity is to climb on top of the water bottle squeezing themselves into a dreadfully painful looking position and proceed to try and chew through the top of their cage. There are two problems with this. One it makes a horrible noise, and no matter how sound a sleeper you are it will wake you up. Two, many times the hamster does manage to chew out of its cage and escape. This then creates several problems for the hamster, as it probably isn't escaping into its normal environment (the desert). It can die of several natural causes, namely starvation or dehydration. It can also be eaten by other domesticated animals such as the indoor house cat.

Through my life it seems that I've always been running from hamsters. Their futile struggles depress me yet people seem to feel that I am a hamster person. This feeling results in an abundance of hamsters. Many of my hamsters have met the awful fate of ingestion by the cat. One was a class pet and was shut in a desk. We rushed it to the vet hospital, but alas it was too late. All of these deaths have been met with tears, funerals, and gifts of more hamsters. I finally thought I was free of the hamster curse when a friend of mine recently dropped out of college to travel (sound familiar), and once again I became the proud owner of a hamster named Caterpillar but more commonly known of as Hammy.

This in no way relates to Hamster bonG who I believe is a wonderful writer. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual person or pet, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.