4.21.2008
I told Kate that some day I would write a short in honor of her hamster. Here it is. My friend asked me how she should think about this story. I told her this, "I would like for you to think of it as one of the stupidest things you've ever read and also mildly amusing. "
Crunchy had been diagnosed with testicular cancer. His ball sack had been large before, but now it had swollen to the size of a peanut. He groaned and laid on his side to give it room.
“So, we might have to put him down?” I asked. Mom had bought me Crunchy two years earlier, when I was in seventh grade. Now, I was definitely too old for a hamster. The cancer seemed serendipitous.
“Of course not, Sarah Elizabeth” she told me, putting her arm around my shoulders. “We’re going to fix Crunchy right up.”
The vet performed the worlds smallest double orchiectomy on Crunchy, who soon began hormone therapy to compensate for his decreased testosterone levels. Mom fed him little bits of mush and water from a dropper as he recovered from his surgery. She made me wake up every four hours to give him Pedialite.
“I don’t think Crunchy would like for his life to be artificially prolonged like this,” I told her.
“Maybe we should let him rest in peace.”
“Are you kidding?” My Mom said. She reached her hand into his cage and petted Crunchy’s back. “He’s our miracle hamster! Don’t worry, baby, he’ll be just fine.”
The next morning I told my Mom that Crunchy had run away.
“But how?” she asked me. “He could barely move.”
“I guess he got better.”
“Oh, Sarah Elizabeth, you must be devastated.”
I told her I was, but that some ice cream might help. We could celebrate Crunchy’s brave recovery from testicular cancer.
-ade
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2 comments:
This touching story reminded me of something my older brother Al once confessed to. For several years his young daughter Michele wanted fish. They had to move several times during Michele`s fish stage. Before moving night, Al and Michele would sit down and draw a map of where they were and where they were going to. They would then hold the map up to the fishbowl and brief the fish. Then they would go to the bathroom, ceremoniously flush the fish down the toilet, and the fish would supposedly swim through the pipes to their new destination. Once they arrived at their new home, Al would get some fish from the petstore, take them home in a plastic bag full of water, and then pretend to pull them out of the toilet. The faithful fish had swum to their new location.
Eventually this cruel hoax was exposed, and Michele went through a long stage where she hated her dad. The end.
Not sure what that had to do with Crunchy the Hamster, God rest his little soul.
I have told this story to universal horror. Thanks for passing it along.
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