Almost two weeks ago, I got a pet hamster. Today, I returned said hamster to the pet store and got two different ones. I can't decide if this makes me a horrible person or not. On one hand, it's only a hamster. On the other hand, I had it for 13 whole days. If this hamster were my kid, I just gave him up for adoption on his 15th birthday.
Okay, maybe I should start from the beginning. We had lots of hamsters when I was kid because my dad was allergic to anything that would have been more entertaining, but they were a lot of fun. Then when I was home for the holidays, I fell in love with the dwarf hamster my older sister got for Christmas, so I decided I would get my very own pet hamster when I got back to Houston. Two pet stores trips later, I drove home with my very own Chinese dwarf hamster (plus about $40 in plastic toys, food, and a "small animal igloo" that my hamster could call home).
My hamster was terrified. Every time I tried to play with her or get her out of the cage, she would scurry into her little igloo and refuse to come out because I, apparently, was an ogre. Curious as to why this hamster seemed to be continuously freaked out, I did a little internet research and discovered that what I actually fell in love with growing up was a Russian dwarf hamster - Chinese hamsters are much more timid and solitary creatures than most other breeds of hamsters. Upon explaining this to my friend Becca over dinner, she promptly told me that a hamster is just a piece of merchandise and could surely be returned to the store if accompanied by a receipt. It took me a couple days, but I decided that I could still live with myself if I returned the hamster. So on Tuesday I scooped up my hamster and took her back to the pet store, only to discover that the store was all out of the Russian dwarf hamsters that I wanted to exchange it for, and that there are people out there (i.e. salespeople at Petsmart) who think I'm a terrible person for returning my hamster. There was, however, one person who told me that I would have more luck on Thursday, when a new "shipment" of Russian dwarf hamsters would be arriving.
So today after work, I went home, scooped up my hamster, and returned to Petsmart with nerves of steel. The woman who took back my hamster gave me a disgusted look as she took the box and showed me to where I could pick out a new hamster. She also did a fantastic job of looking royally bored while I oohed and ahhed over the other hamsters and took forever to pick two out. But now all is well - I have the two cutest hamsters on the face of the earth, and I still made it home in time to watch the O.C.
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2 comments:
Yeah! Melanie has a journal! And you replaced one hamster with two? What are there names? A boy and girl? Are they going to have little hamster babies?
If it were a cat or a dog or a bird, I think things would be different, but I think hamsters, gerbels, and fish are returnable. Maybe because I don't think they have that much personality. dunno, I never owned a hamster. The closest I have come to a hamster is "Hamsterwheil" on Lilo and Stitch and his personality sucks.
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