The Incident With The Hamster.

When I was in 3rd grade, I got to babysit the class hamster for a week (I don't remember his name but we'll call him Mr. Giggles as that seems an appropriate hamster name).  I fell in love, capital L-O-V-E kinda love.  I begged my parents to let me get a hamster of my very own.  Finally they agreed on the condition that I promised to clean the cage and feed the hamster.

My mother is going to love my artistic rendition of her...

We went to the hamster store where I found the fuzziest, fattest hamster ever.

After we paid for the hamster and its necessary supplies, I took it home and we became best friends...well, mostly it cowered in the corner of the cage and bit me every time I tried to pick it up.  But I didn't care, because love is blind.  I named it Cinnamon Amber Cookie, because cinnamon cookies were my favorite and Amber was the name of my babysitter, and also because kid logic is simple like that.

A couple of weeks after I got Cinnamon, my grandparents came to visit.  It must have been Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or something.  I begged my grandma to come downstairs and look at my hamster.

Really, all the women in my family have amazingly big hair.

I was torn.  I really wanted them to come downstairs to see my hamster, but I also knew that if I went to the store with them, I stood a better chance of scoring sugary cereal and fizzy sodas.  Eventually, my childish sugar craving won out and I skipped off to the store with grandma and grandpa with visions of Lucky Charms in my eyes.

We returned home in a caffeine fueled tizzy, and I dragged my (no doubt) tired grandparents downstairs to see my hamster in all her glory. 

Tragically, while we were at the store, my hamster had died.  My mom said she probably choked to death because she liked to eat her little house-tube-thing.  But, honestly, it was probably from fright.

And thus, I learned one of the hard lessons of life: hamsters are like goldfish, they flush easily down the toilet.

***Edit***

I received this email from my mother after she read this post:

All I have to say is that I was a sensitive child.  And the cafeteria smelled funny, so of course I milked the opportunity to eat lunch elsewhere.