hamsty lives! (but does he really live?)

about a month ago, we put abigail’s hamster named hamsty in the garage for the night because we had someone staying over. being a nocturnal creature, all his routine wheel spinning exercises and scamperings in his cage during the night would have disturbed the sleep of our guest. well as fate would have it, hamsty managed to break out of his cage that night, the clever little thing that he is. we soon reaped the reward of having a garage packed full of needless junk and realized that there was no way for us to catch him. as abigail worked through the emotions of her loss, we tried to make do, and hold out from buying hamsty’s replacement to console abigail. we left his cage out and open in the garage with food and water, and quickly noticed that he had no hesitations about going in there and snatching a quick bite. as the days wore on, we’d have an occassional hamsty siting, as a ball of fluff would quickly dash behind cover, but we had no real hope of catching him, unless we were willing to remove everything from the corner of the garage where we knew hamsty had made his home. we even talked about possibly setting up a hamsty cam pointed at the cage so we could catch him at his breakfast, but i never got around to it. we began to fear for his health and safety, and the hamsty sitings became less frequent (especially after the last siting when we had him cornered behind a mountain of junk with a flash light locked on to him, and tried to force him out with a broom) to the point that we thought he may have passed on to hamsty heaven. but to our excitement we did find that he had removed some food from his cage a couple days ago, after his reserves had thinned out, and we found encouragement…

to much surpise and excitement last night, while we were getting out of the car, abigail heard a scratch and rustle coming from the corner of the garage. she and kim narrowed it down to the golf bag that was standing upright in the corner. they yelled for me ecstatically to come back to the garage and sure enough, i was able to retrieve hamsty unharmed from the bottom of the golf bag. we even had a moment of alarm when one of the golf clubs slipped from my hand and went slamming back into the bag.. but hamsty wasn’t smashed..

so hamsty is now back in his cell, sleeping the day away. there was a sense of hamsty’s shock and dissappointment last night. we could sense him wondering how he can go on, now that he has tasted true freedom. and so he lives, but the question remains; does he really live???

we will ponder that question from time to time for the rest of his life i am sure… little does hamsty know, he is getting a special hamster leash for christmas, so at least he will be able to get out for an occasional walk. we will be sure to walk him in the garage too, and take him to his favorite hamsty hideouts. there are also the whispers of desire that have arisen now to get hamsty a bigger cage, but my response to that is that the garage is plenty big enough.

September 2005

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