Obituaries

OBITUARIES

Dearest Scotchie,

My youngest hamster, gone too soon.

You came to us all the way from Woodlands. We picked you up close to midnight on a random school night. You were gigantic and robust, taking up an entire plastic container. You looked fierce and frightened, but we instantly fell in love with you. You lost some of that original heft with us, because of my insistence on 'healthy food'.

You loved biting on your tube, on the side of the cage, on the wire mesh. It turned out though, beneath your gangster exterior, was a timid, curious, sweet-natured orange fluffball! You often acted like you wanted to come out of your cage, but you were deep down a scaredy cat. You never ventured far from home, unlike Yuki, who was an intrepid shredder and explorer. I always managed to find you less than a few metres away, gingerly sniffing some corner, or meticulously cleaning yourself.

You had a lot of energy, at least when you were not busy being fussy. Your food and bedding had to be arranged JUST SO, and your fur would be groomed for hours, especially after anyone had played with you. Oh how you loved marking areas with your pee and poo, and taking special care to eat your lab blocks such that each one was slowly ground down from a long rectangle to a small round block. I wonder if you really enjoyed playing in plastic tubes and cardboard boxes. I wonder if you are upset that I loved having you do somersaults and often tried to move you away from your preferred bite spots.

Speaking of biting, you only bit me only once, when we were both terrified and acting out of self defence, jumping back simultaneously upon contact. Your usual modus operandi was to take food ever-so-gently from human fingers. We ended up delighting in hand feeding you. Although you never quite overcame your jittery nature, I'm proud to say you had lovely fur and a friendly temperament, and sometimes when you allowed me to stroke your soft face and belly I felt warm and fuzzy and trusted for the entire afternoon.

I do wish you were less wriggly though---I didn't get many good shots of you because of all that fidgeting. Whether you died of pneumonia, a heart condition or something else, I'll never know. How ironic it is though, that in death I got to bond with you. You had just stashed and arranged your vegetables in your secret tube and eaten baby puree. I'd gone to wash my hands to cut up some tofu for you, and then you were gone. I carried you out, and I could stroke, pose and kiss you. Your body remained warm, soft and gentle for a long while. Thank you my dearest Scotch.

Stay plump, stay beautiful and stay forever cute at the rainbow bridge, my Mickey Mouse brown bear. We love you.

ADVENTURES

Yuki arrived fat and lazy, a hulking and slow snow white mass sleeping in a plastic take-out box, her hamster mix all around her. There was water condensation on the lid, I remember. For several days she was wary of her new habitrail cages, coming out only to literally grab a bite or steal licks of water. We also discovered that she was very, very good at hoarding food, with seemingly bottomless cheek pouches that she could stuff full of lab blocks. She also smelt like poo.

As with all things, as time passed we slowly warmed up to each other, and she started to enjoy leaving her cage, and credit to her she was never a biter. She seemed to understand that violence and fear were a last resort, always either languidly contemplating her surroundings or a woman of action, ready to rush off to the next adventure. She enjoyed running in her ball (but never her wheel), and could go for 30 minutes without resting. She also liked going to the garden, sniffing at and chomping on the vegetation there.

She made great and daring escapes twice, both times travelling great distances across the living room to one of the bedrooms, and expertly shredding whatever paper or cloth material she found to make a soft cozy bed for herself. She was able to enter wardrobes, climb into drawers, sneak and hide behind bookcases and somehow, because she had wormed her way into your heart, you had to marvel at her daring do instead of getting mad at her.

Burning of Melissa story

Reward for TC disappearance