My pet hate

Gareth Pike

People always ask me what I think about hamsters. Why don't I get a hamster? Company in the flat etc. Well, I'll tell you what I think about hamsters. I've done the hamster thing. I'll tell you why I have nothing bigger than a basil plant in my flat.

Ever.

It all really started with silkworms. You know, those wriggly squishy worms that all kids have at one time or another, which eat heaps and heaps of leaves. My brother and I had ones called Batman, Superman, Spiderman and Hulk (the big bastard). Then one day they turned into inanimate yellow pods and we threw them on the compost heap.

So we moved on to rabbits. Little Hannibal and Hanna, along with a (fast-) growing family of tiny black, white and tan jumpers, all skittish ears and sniffle noses. For a while, all was good with the rabbits. We raised the nippers to hunt crows in the cabbage patch and held pantomimes where Hannibal would be a pirate and Hanna a lady of the night in a Kingston brothel. And then, well … our farm had lots of puff-adders.

A puff-adder is a loathsome (I hear protests from herpetologists at the back) creature. Right up there on my list of BAD ANIMALS, along with flies, elephants (it's my opinion, OK), moths (just the poor man's butterfly) and Pugs.

There are some real animal bastards out there, let me tell you. Every week another German tourist is trampled by a buffalo, some new pet-store owner is savaged by the tortoise in the corner tank, some new hand that feeds gets bitten. You'd think they've all been reading copies of Animal Farm, translated into duck and marmot.

On the net, only this morning (I forget the website - apologies):

Old man attacked by pet cat while bathing his parrot
An elderly Canadian man was said to be recovering on Thursday following a savage attack by his pet cat, which drew four carloads of police, two ambulances and an animal control officer.
      The National Post newspaper, cited by Reuters, said Gerard Daigle, 80, lost a pint of blood and required stitches after his cat launched a frenzied attack after Daigle, who was apparently giving his pet parrot a shower, inadvertently sprayed the cat with water. He was saved by his wife, who wrestled the cat away, only to have it turn on her. The couple managed to chase the cat into the bedroom and slam the door. Police responded in force because they thought they were dealing with a domestic emergency.
      It is not known why Daigle was giving his parrot a shower.

So, bastards. Puff-adders, in particular. My stepmother once hacked one to death in the farm kitchen with a fire axe as it slithered towards my baby brothers. The farm was rife with them …

What followed was to be expected. One morning the rabbit hutch was just ... empty. I tried to believe that I had dreamed those almost human wails in the night.

After several late-night tearful sessions with our mum, along slithered our red-lipped herald, Brick. He soon escaped through a crack in the bedroom wall and came out in the bathroom, giving sister Doris a hernia and the determination to force us to sell the herpet (as she called him). Brick found a new, and as far as we know, uneventful life in the home of Cecil down the road.

Oh, we went through all the usual things after that. Ant farm. Ant-lion colony to feed terrified ants to. Tadpoles. Fish.

Target, the Siamese fighter, devoured his way through Emma, Buttercup and seven other goldfish before turning belly up from exhaustion. The fish were followed by short-lived (for them) encounters with two rats, a chameleon, a praying mantis and a Wolf Spider.

Then something special happened.

Hammy. The tubbiest, warmest little hamster in the entire world. He used to put his little paws up on the bars of his cage and "wave" at us in the mornings. Of course, given the fatality rate of our pets thus far, my brother and I were hesitant to get too close to the new addition. We cleaned his cage in a business-like manner and stoically ignored his plaintive cries to be let out, oh please, just for a moment.

As months passed, we began to reconsider. Day after day those little gimlet eyes would fix on us wetly. Little paws would clutch the bars, nose would quiver. Where's the harm, we thought? He'll be OK.

So one evening we put a tiny leash on him and walked him around on the linoleum, where he'd bump into table legs in his excitement to get at beetles. He'd climb the cotton curtains to a height of ten hamster storeys (we'd place cushions on the floor below him) and then sort of somersault over onto the kitchen table, where rested a bowl of grapes. As reward for his bravery, we'd allow him one grape per successful climb, to store in the musty hidden depths of his cage.

On 7 March 1984, my brother and I looked at each other, then over at Hammy, who was assembling a small hut from peach skin and grass on the top shelf of his cage - there being no "E.R." to entertain the hamster demographic.

We hemmed and hawed, then went over and lifted our furry friend from his place of abode and strode out into the back yard, where shone a glittering roof of stars and a moon so big you could lick it. We knew what we were doing and we had trained young Hammy to stay alert, by rolling his hamster ball (with him inside) down flights of stairs. Oh, he had the bruises, but if there'd been a hamster army, he would have been fit to serve.

I nudged the wee feller onto the lawn and he nearly swooned at the sheer immensity of the outside world. Perhaps he remembered it distantly from the day he was taken from his dead mother, downed by voles, and brought into safety at Boys' Pet Shop.

Let free, he scampered to and fro, hither and thither, and my brother and I kept close watch. I could feel the tension in my jaw, but damn it to Michael, he deserved this freedom. He had outlasted all of our previous pets by almost a year.

I plumped down onto the grass and put my chin on my hands to watch. We cracked open celebratory Sprites to mark the occasion. It seemed our pet curse had at last been broken. Hammy tumbled endearingly from a stand of buttercup and ended up face first in the clover.

Oh, we laughed.

At 19.00 hours, I smiled at my brother.

"Well, perhaps we should call it a night; he'll tire himself out soon. He's over-excited."

We looked over at Hammy, whose eyes shone with a small, wordless kind of love. He knew what pride was. He scratched his ear and sniffled.

Then a great Eagle Owl swooped down like a Stuka, snatched Hammy with incisor-like talons and bucked up and away into the inky dark, wings denting the air. Predator and prey vanished. The night held its breath. A grey feather drifted to the lawn, like the mark of an assassin.

"Well," said my brother, "we'd best go and find Mother."

That night, the pair of us swore never to take on another pet - not so much as a flea. The carnage, the pain … it had to end. We went on with our lives, we grew, and we loved - humans, only.

Every time I passed a pet shop, though, years later, I'd grimace, shrink my shoulders and hurry on. The bitterness festered.

Oh sure, I see a shrink about it. He's slowly trying to get me to come round to buying a mouse. "But I know what will happen!" I yell, "it'll die like all of them! Like Hammy!" Then I weep, and he pats me on the shoulder. They tell me to live is to love, and to love is to lose. But you weren't there. You don't know how important it was, how meaningful.

You get a hamster. You see what happiness it brings you.

Gareth Pike is an advertising copywriter and freelance journalist. After a stint in Europe last year, he returned to Durban. This year he has been published in SL magazine, House & Leisure South Africa and on various US-based websites including www.goxray.com and www.caples.org. His late mother, Marion Baxter, was a Cosmo short story winner and her writings, all focused on the Eastern Cape, are housed at NELM (Rhodes University). Gareth's short story "Head Land" was a semi finalist in the Natal Witness' 2004 short story competition. He is currently working on a first novel.

LitNet: 10 December 2004

to the top

© Kopiereg in die ontwerp en inhoud van hierdie webruimte behoort aan LitNet, uitgesluit die kopiereg in bydraes wat berus by die outeurs wat sodanige bydraes verskaf. LitNet streef na die plasing van oorspronklike materiaal en na die oop en onbeperkte uitruil van idees en menings. Die menings van bydraers tot hierdie werftuiste is dus hul eie en weerspieël nie noodwendig die mening van die redaksie en bestuur van LitNet nie. LitNet kan ongelukkig ook nie waarborg dat hierdie diens ononderbroke of foutloos sal wees nie en gebruikers wat steun op inligting wat hier verskaf word, doen dit op hul eie risiko. Media24, M-Web, Ligitprops 3042 BK en die bestuur en redaksie van LitNet aanvaar derhalwe geen aanspreeklikheid vir enige regstreekse of onregstreekse verlies of skade wat uit sodanige bydraes of die verskaffing van hierdie diens spruit nie. LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf.