Five Hamsters Starring in - NOT a Sales Pitch

....And now we have five hamsters.

There! That's the end of the story! That's all the explanation you need, right?....No? You need to know why we have five hamsters living in individual cages? Well, it's because they'd either breed or kill each other if we kept them all in the same cage. Oh, you want to know why I have five hamsters in the first place when we already have a turtle, a dog, a rabbit, and a fish? Ok, here's the time sequence:

1) There was light.
2) There were five hamsters.

That's the Biblical version of what happened. Here's the godless version:

1) Emma's dad gave her two hamsters that were living at his house.
2) The hamsters went on a date.
3) The girl hamster gave birth to 14 babies.
4) Emma's dad began to travel with work and could not care for the animals.
5) Emma looked at me with big, sorrowful eyes and asked if we could take care of the babies until they were old enough to go to the pet store.
6) No local pet store would take them because they didn't have their shots or some other stupid reason.
7) Five babies were given to good homes, six escaped into the yard, and three are now fully grown and have built their own homes. In my house.
8) Their parents are still with us and are not allowed to date. Each other or anyone else.

I'm still asking around to see if anyone would like one or more hamsters, complete with cage, but no one's taken me up on the offer. I don't understand. Sure, they're just a step away from rats and if they escape you will find droppings for days, but they're so fluffy! They're like live pillows with eyeballs.

A hamster is the kind of pet that I wish I could put in a tuxedo. I think it's because they're so fuzzily delightful, they make me want to do humanizing and thus degrading things to them to accentuate their cuteness, like when you see a dog in a sweater. The dog in the sweater thing is so old. How often do you see a hamster in a sweater? Not often or possibly ever but if you did, that hamster would setting cute records that a dog could only dream about.

Have you decided to adopt a hamster yet?

So, as you know, our pet count in my house fluctuates depending on the breed, lifespan, and the timing of a cat's speed vs a passing car. Right now we have:
1) Lily the dog
2) Ginger the rabbit
3) Ishmael Fishmael Herman Melville the Third - a goldfish with impressive credentials
4) Lightening the turtle
5) A hamster
6) A hamster
7) A hamster
8) A hamster
9) A hamster

Actually, we have named the hamsters now that we're sure that they're ours and no one wants them. Are you the type of person who falls for people or things that no one else wants? NO ONE wants them! NOOOOBODY! They're so cold and alone on the fringe of society! They just need a shoulder to crawl on, a hand to nibble, a house other than mine! Well, maybe I'm projecting with that last part. But ok. Their names are:
1) Bolt
2) Twilight
3) Brownie
4) Thor
5) Ulysses

Guess which ones I named? The kids wanted to call Ulysses "Scamp," but when he was a baby he went missing for three days and showed up just as we'd given him up for dead. He went on an epic journey, fought a cyclops, was hailed by sirens, and...did whatever else the myth describes. Only he knows what those things are. Anyway, after that ordeal I decided that he'd earned a grander name than "Scamp." Plus, I hadn't gotten to name one yet.

And if you took him into your home for FREE you could hear all about it. He doesn't speak English, but I believe that he tries to communicate through whisker twitches. I would take the time to learn it, but with the other four hamsters twitching their whiskers all at once it gets loud in there. Kind of like being on a bus. Full of hamsters with moving noses.

I named the other one Thor because he runs around with a little hammer. Does that affect your decision to take him? Well, he doesn't smack things with it. He fixes things around the house. In fact, yes YES all of the hamsters were named for a unique capability. Bolt is fast, so he can take you places on time. Twilight can tell you stories about sparkly vampires. Brownie bakes sweets. Thor is a handy man, and Ulysses is a sailor/adventurer who will fight a cyclops for you.

So now that you've decided to take any and maybe even all of our beautiful, handy hamsters, please write to me at this address:
12345 Hairball Plaza
Cage Shavings, LA 6789101112

But won't the kids miss them you ask? Maybe we should also do a roll call of the other critters in my house, since it's been a while.
1. Claire - human female, 14, listens to music and is chronically bored.
2. Emma - human female, 12, plays with all of the animals that her siblings have little to no interest in, makes art and avoids homework.
3. Christopher - gamer male, 10, plays video games, also avoids homework. His job is to eat and get taller.

So Emma and I might miss them a little, but since the animal to human ratio is beating us I think we could afford to lighten the load.

That address again is:
1000 Whiskers Blvd.
Oh My God Take Them, LA

Well, I can't put my address on the internet! Sigh. Could it be that I really do want to keep the hamsters, now that I've named them and nursed one of them back to health after he returned from an epic journey, gaunt and gasping for corn and sunflower seeds? Well. Maybe. Maybe I'd miss them a little. Besides, I am starting to learn their whisker language. And I did tape broom straws to my face that one time so I could twitch back. And Brownie is a good cook.

So...does anyone need piles of discarded fur? We've got bails of them. It would make a fetching sweater for your dog.