Half a Hamster

By request, here is the story of our 'half a hamster':

Janina finally talked me into letting her get a hamster, after a few hamster-free years. We went to the local home center to choose one out, and 2 hours later the kids were sitting in the car waiting for me, the hamster in its little carry-home box. I got everything else loaded, shut the car up, jumped in to drive the new addition home, Janina says:
"Mom, I can't find the hamster!!"
"What do you mean, 'you can't find the hamster', isn't it in the box?"
"I let her come out to play and she ran under the seat!" (DUH!!)
"What!!?? Why would you let the hamster out of the box in the car?? Of course its going to run away, it's a stupid animal with a small brain and loves trouble!"

I jumped out and started searching the car (we have a 7-seater Toyota Ipsum, a lot of space to hide). Half an hour later I gave up, we couldn't sit in the parking lot forever, for all I knew, the thing had already run out the door and found a new life in the grass. But I gave Janina an earful and scared the crap out of her, that maybe hammy was in the engine and as soon as I turn it on that was going to be the end of hammy, and no way are we going to buy a new one, etc... she was pretty much in tears (though she can be a tough nut!)

The next day we caved and her dad took her down to find another hamster (after all, we had the food, the cage, the wood chips, all of it waiting for a cute hamster!). Brought the hamster home, put it in the cage, went to empty the car and what do we find?? Hamster droppings in the back of the car--damn that creature--it's made a home in our car--and we have 2 cats as well, dangerous living! And so here we are setting out food and water in our car twice a day for the thing, and I'm feeling that my life is being controlled by our pets. So, Art gets tired of having a hamster living in the car, it's really not a proper place for a hamster to live, and he decides to catch it, how hard could it be really--it sneaks out for food, you got it!

Two hours later Art comes back in the house for refreshments--no hamster--it seems we bought ourselves a clever little devil--it pokes its nose out for food--watches Art, dashes out for food and is back under the seats somewhere before he can react! Well, he finally caught the thing, and now we are the proud owners of 2 hamsters--not for long!!

Unfortunately there's a jealousy issue, and hamster number 2 can't handle being the one and only, so poor little hamster number one who survived the car, loses the battle and we make another little grave in the backyard for her (in total, we probably actually have about 12-1/2 hamster graves around Osaka). So, hamster number 2 is now hamster number 1 and I've given up on remembering names. It's just 'the hamster'.

At this point of time our cats still lived in the house (actually, now it's just cat--we had to relocate one of them due to bad behavior). But this cat, who is really good, seems to have absolutely no interest in the hamster. We could leave cat in room with hamster and come back to cat in room with hamster. Cat didn't sit there eying the snack, cat didn't sit there wooing snack out of cage, cat didn't even seem to know snack was right under her nose, so we didn't worry. Hmmm--cats are clever and know how to wait! One day, hamster 2 disappears. Kids searched the rooms, the house, the yard, no hamster whatsoever--but we've gone through disappearing hamster tricks before, and they always manage to find their way home.

Three days later Jason is cleaning under his bed, and comes out yelling--I found some legs!! Ooooh, yuuuck!! Gross fascination--Jason found the latter half of hamster number 2, and we know what happened to the poor little critter. So, with tears and morbid fascination, (and lots of yelling at cat!) we buried half a hamster next to 2 other hamsters.

And that's the story of half a hamster.