Life Abundantly

In years past it was common for clssrooms to have a "pet."  These "pets" would often be fish or turtles or hermit crabs or mice or gerbils or hamsters. Yes, hamsters, the teddy bear of the rodent world.  My friends, when we were all young teachers/ librarians, had hamsters in their classrooms.  The hope was that some member of the class would adopt the "pet" for the summer and return it next year, or even keep it.  My friends' plans did not include having pet hamsters for the summer.

So it came to pass in ways so mysterious and innocent that I can hardly recall them all these years later that my new husband and I took possession of approximately 3 hamsters.  There were the bachelors Frederico and Hugo and the pregnant (we found out after we got her) female Hamatha.  Hamatha had a single daughter shortly after we got her. I think we found a home for that hamster rather quickly because I can't recall her name.

Later my husband thought it might be fun to have more baby hamsters or another baby hamster. So, we broke up the bachelors and Hamatha was in a family way rather quickly.  One thing you may not know about hamsters is--they don't like each other. Hamantha didn't want to live with Frederico (or was it Hugo) after the deed was done and the bachelors were no longer happy with each other involving more cages.  Then Hamatha had 17 baby hamsters.  We were over the legal limits of hamsters within a couple of months.  We had at least 20 hamsters!  Remember, I told you hamsters don't like to live with each other?

So, ultimately it came to pass that school was starting up again and we secured classroom positions for the bachelors and Hamatha and the 17 baby hamsters were raised to weaning and then spit spot off they went to the pet store (and I don't like to think that they might have become the food of snakes, but they might).  And within a couple of months of that we were expecting a baby of our own.

I thought about this when I read about a man who was recently found to have 94 hamsters.  He was persuaded to give them all up, although he had wanted to keep a few.