Admittedly, it wasn’t our finest parenting moment. With reluctance, we gave our eight-year-old daughter a hamster for her birthday. Our trepidation stemmed from the fact that Chloe hasn’t exactly had the best luck with pets. Every time, she names them, grows attached to them, and then, her new little friends kick the bucket. We worried that if the streak continued, Chloe would be devastated.
Sure enough, shortly after bringing home a little chestnut brown fur-ball from the pet store, our newest family member (whom Chloe had named Coco) kicked the bucket.
My wife and I debated what to do. We decided to try the old bait and switch. Amy would go to the pet store while Chloe was at school and buy another hamster. When Chloe got home and ran to greet her beloved pet, everything would look the same and she’d never know the difference.
Problem was there weren’t any Coco look-a-likes at the pet store. Amy came home with a greyish fur-ball bearing no resemblance to Coco. At that point, we could only hope for the best. Maybe Chloe would think that her hamster’s fur color was changing because she was getting older?
Chloe and Coco II
The impostor hamster was curled in a ball, sleeping soundly, when Chloe came home to check on her, so Chloe didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary right away. But later, the hamster started to stir and an excited Chloe ran to the cage to greet her little friend.
This new hamster proved to be the angriest, most aggressive little creature we’d ever laid eyes on. It charged at Chloe and hissed with teeth bared. As you might expect, Chloe freaked out. Who was this evil, hissing grey-colored beast in Coco’s cage and what had it done with her sweet, docile hamster?
And so, I had to confess: Coco had gone to hamster heaven, and we had tried to replace Coco with someone new. Once my daughter had recovered from the shock, she took it quite well. We decided to return the angry, hissing grey hamster to the pet store and allow Chloe to select a friendlier companion. She came home with Coco II.
Turns out, roly poly Coco II was a pregnant hamster. Just days later, she gave birth to an entire litter of little hamster babies. Chloe is a grandmother at the tender age of 8, making me a great grandfather!
Although we’re still trying to figure out what to do with an entire litter of baby hamsters, I’m just happy that Chloe’s dying-pet streak has finally ended. Long live Coco II (and all of her little hamsters infants)!
There’s a moral to this story, but there’s also a joke. And after that entire experience, I could use a few laughs. I hope you enjoy one too:
A man takes his hamster to the vet, and after a short look at the creature the vet pronounces it dead.
Not happy with the vet’s diagnosis the man asks for a second opinion.
The vet gives a whistle and in strolls a Labrador dog.
The dog nudges the hamster around with its nose and sniffs it a couple of times before shaking his head.
“There,” says the vet,” your hamster is dead”.
Still not happy the man asks for a third opinion.
The vet opens the back door and in bounds a cat.
The cat jumps onto the table and looks the hamster up and down for a few minutes before looking up and shaking it’s head.
“It’s definitely dead sir”, says the vet.
Convinced, the man asks the doctor how much he owes.
“That will be $1500.00, please”.
“What?”, asks the man incredulously. $1500.00 just to tell me my hamster is dead?!”
“Well”, says the vet, “There’s my diagnosis, the lab report, and the cat scan.”
Fuel for Thought,
~Bob
