For the Love of a Hairless Hampster

Feb. 8, 2006

You wanna come over and see my hairless hamster?” I found myself asking this of people, weirdly, but in all innocence and unaware of the not-so-subtle subtext. Even my response when they’d demure, “He’s really cool,” seems bizarre in retrospect.
Truth is I’ve got one, and not only hairless but albino also. A little pink guy with red eyes. He’s a rescue hamster. I found him quivering on the grass, in a corner of the foundation of my old apartment building on Lake Ave. in Traverse City. Hot summer day, in bright sunlight, with a large bee hovering above his papery pink back. His head was tucked in. He was hiding.
My inclination was to scoop him up, but then I thought that he might be a bitey little fellow, or that he might panic and take off. My only other experience with a rodent had been a pet rat named Roadkill, who had lived mostly in the pocket of my MC jacket and later died in an apartment fire. Roadkill had never bitten me, but still, this guy was an unknown so I went inside and grabbed a shoebox to scoop him into.
Back inside with the guy, I looked around for something to put him in  temporarily.  Something tall enough so he couldn’t get out, and made of something non-chewable. I was in the process of moving and had a large hideous gold trunk I’d bought at the Salvation Army. It was perfect, so I placed him inside and headed upstairs.
I knew this abandoned critter had something to do with my neighbor; he’d had a hairless hamster for sometime. I’d only really looked at it once and had been mildly grossed out. To me it looked like a ball of flesh with a face stuck on it, and claws.  

DUMPSTER DIVING
It turned out my neighbor (let’s call him uh…Shaun), had bought another hamster to be buddies with his. The problem was that the new hamster didn’t take to his and attacked it. “Look what it did,” Shaun said to me, pointing towards his hamster in its cage. (Sure enough, it had some blood on it and what look like cuts along its back). He said that the thing was evil, so he’d tossed it outside and threw it’s cage in the dumpster.
I eventually got him to climb into the dumpster and retrieve the cage after pointing out that maybe his hamster was an ass and the new guy just didn’t like him, (besides neither one of them had ever seen one of their own), and that to toss an innocent creature into the yard exposing it to certain violent death by cat or whatever made him a rather bad person. 
I had to climb in myself later on because Shaun had missed one necessary tube for the cage.  It wasn’t a good dumpster for diving into either, what with it being shared with Maxbauer’s market and filled with rotted meat and vegetables.

MOVING ON...
So that was last summer and now its winter and The Roman and I are roommates still.  I did an online contest to name him and The Roman won; Keira Knightly came in second, and the winner got one of my Lindsey Lohan portraits. 
The Roman lives in the kitchen ‘cause he’s nocturnal and runs on his wheel all night making noise. Realizing his life is rather limited, I’ve made it as comfortable and entertaining as possible. He has an extensive and ever-growing play/living area made up of wheels, tubes, and cubby-holes. I have wood floors so he also has a clear plastic ball that he can zip around in on occasion. 
I did a little investigating and found out that he’s a genetic mutant from Syria. He can also catch colds and likes and recognizes voices so I talk to him a lot and keep the kitchen warm. 
Oh yeah, and since he’ll only live around two-four years I’ve had him immortalized forever by having his portrait tattooed on my right bicep. The Roman will live forever!