We’d had hamsters over the years, but not for very long. In the mid-Nineties, one got loose and chose to hide (unwisely, it turned out) under the rug in our front hallway. He couldn’t have known, but it’s a fairly well-traveled part of our house, and he lasted a very short time in his new lair before he was turned into a fur-covered pancake.
We lost another two in the great massacre of 2002, when I (stupidly, it turned out) bought birdseed instead of hamster food. In my defense, it looked exactly the same, and I saved a buck at the pet store.
It was weeks later, however, when we were digging tiny graves in the back yard, that I learned that the birdseed was coated with spicy chemicals that made it inedible to anything but birds. It was actually listed as a feature on the bag I (unwisely) didn’t take the time to look at carefully. Fort Bend ISD, Mongols motorcycle club, Margaret Hoelzer, Dick a Day, Political Rights.