It’s not the first time Ivan has identified with our rodent friends. He has always been fascinated with our hamsters:

He noted, for example, that hamsters line their beds with toilet paper.

Here’s CrenguÈ›a in bed:

And Valentina:

And Lucian:

Of course, Ivan followed suit:

Now that we’ve switched to guinea pigs, Ivan is having identity issues again. This time, he’s gone a bit further:

Matt described the event: “The pigs actually weren’t very disturbed when Ivan climbed in there, so I didn’t worry about them too much (Chuy actually likes Ivan quite a bit, and will follow him around), but about 30 minutes later, the fact that they’d shared naptime with a cat seemed to have sunk in, and they were a little retroactively freaked out, requiring lots of cilantro and fresh hay to compensate for. . . . ”

Apparently, there was some hay-eating on Ivan’s part too.

Matt and I thought we came up with the cleverest game ever to play with a hamster.

We thought the hamsters would play along.

Hamsters really like to make nests out of tissue paper; my hamsters get a wad of toilet paper a week to build their nest; thus, we concluded, a whole roll of toilet paper would be a dream come true to a hamster.

We thought we would document the daily unraveling of the toilet paper roll and that the hamster would fill up the cage with scrunched up bits of toilet paper.

It would have been so cute.

Last January, when Crenguța still lived, we awarded her with a whole roll:

She tore off a bit of toilet paper. Then she stopped.

You can see the nest in the top left corner. (All the black oblong shapes are hamster poops.)

This is as big as her nest ever got:

This January, we decided to replicate the experiment with Lucian.

After a week, here’s what his cage looks like:

The little guy only took what he needed. In fact, less than he needed. He built up the rest of his nest with the newspaper that lines his cage.

The hamsters’ lack of a sense of fun leaves me disappointed in their kind. It may be a generalization, but I suspect the entire species of being no fun.

Where’s the wanton greed? Where’s the unfettered extravagance?

Hamsters have a lot to learn from humans.

Here’s something to keep in mind, hamsters of the world:

Each American [human] will consume 700,000 kilograms (1.5 million lbs.) of minerals (mostly sand and gravel), and 24 billion BTUs of energy — equivalent to 4000 barrels of oil (40% in petroleum products, 25% each in natural gas and coal). In a lifetime, an average American [human] will eat 25,000 kilograms (55,000 lbs.) of plant foods (20% each in vegetables, sweeteners, fruits & juices, grains, and other plant products) and 28,000 kilograms (60,000 lbs.) of animal products (70% milk, 7% each beef, chicken and pork), provided in part by slaughtering 2000 animals (>90% poultry).*

Hamsters, you only have, on average, a two-year lifespan vs. a human’s 70-80 years. I highly doubt you’re even close to a two-year-old human’s consumption levels.

Yeah, sure, you are eating your way to that 25,000 kg of plant foods, but have you stopped to think about how close you are to slaughtering your allotted 2000 animals? I haven’t seen any hamsters lately sinking their teeth into any fat juicy steaks.

And how about those forests? Sheesh, you’re making us humans do all the work in destroying them. Can’t you at least do your part? A whole roll of toilet paper and you’re like, what, saving it for something?

Waste already! It’s so much fun! That’s why we live in a free country! We can do whatever we —

Hey! Punk! I’m talking to you! Are you even listening?

Aww, screw it!

He went to sleep.

*From “The Environmental Consequences of Having a Baby in the United States”, via Dave Pollard, himself via Darren Barefoot.

Above: My former, very much feral hamster, Crenguţă.

Matt found this passage in David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest (page 93):

It’s a herd of feral hamsters, a major herd, thundering across the yellow plains of the southern reachs of the Great Concavity in what used to be Vermont, raising dust that forms a uremic-hued cloud with somatic shapes interpretable from as far away as Boston and Montreal. The herd is descended from two domestic hamsters set free by a Waterton NY boy at the beginning of the Experialist migration in the subsidized Year of the Whopper. The boy now attends college at Champaign IL and has forgotten that his hamsters were named Ward and June.

The noise of the herd is tornadic, locomotival. The expression on the hamsters’ whiskered faces is businesslike and implacable - it’s that implacable-herd expression. They thunder eastward across pedalferrous terrain that today is fallow, denuded. To the eat, dimmed by the fulvous cloud the hamsters send up, is the vivid verdant ragged outline of the annularly overfertilized forests of what used to be central Maine.

All these territories are now property of Canada.

With respect to a herd of this size, please exercise the sort of common sense that come to think of it would keep your thinking man out of the southwest Concavity anyway. Feral hamsters are not pets. They mean business. Wide berth advised. Carry nothing even remotely vegetablish if in the path of a feral herd. If in the path of such a herd, move quickly and calmly in a direction perpendicular to their own. If American, north is not advisable. Move south, calmly and in all haste, toward some border metropolis - Rome NNY or Glen Falls NNY or Beverly MA, say, or those bordered points between them at which the giant protective ATHSCME fans atop the hugely convex protective walls of anodized Lucite hold off the drooling and piss-colored [sic] bank of teratogenic Concavity clouds and move the bank well back, north, away, jaggedly, over your protected head.

Matt is already on page 103 and says tha hamsters have not returned.

Meanwhile, here’s Lucian trying to look feral:

This is my stepcat:

While Matt is away, Ivan stays with me.

In the past, Ivan’s stay has produced some weird behaviour.

It must have been the hamsters.

Hamsters, in their domesticated environment, use tissue for their bedding. Each hamster had her style; Anişoara had a thing for for tissue curtains on her house, Crenguţă for a neatly lined nest, Valentina merely had a free-for-all disaster area going*.

After a couple of weeks with me, Ivan returned home. Then Matt discovered this:

As you can see, Ivan lined his own cat bed with paper towels. Just like the hamsters.

But the hamsterification of the cat is not over.

Ivan discovered the hamster treat bucket.

Whenever I go to the pet store, I always throw in a few hamster extras for the little ones. I’ve accumulated a bucket’s worth of little packets of “hamster ravioli” and “hamster yoghurt drops” and the like. I left the bucket out by the hamster cage and Ivan explored.

He took out one bag, chewed it open, took out one hamster treat, licked it and was horrified. He tried another one from the same bag. He spat it out. Then he picked up another bag, chewed it open and same reaction. You could almost see the despair on his face: “What the hell are these hamsters eating?”

During the night he opened one more bag and spat out the one nibblet.

At least Lucian had no problem with the regurgitated treats.

*Even Sylvia from Small Animal Rescue commented that she was one messy hamster.

Valentina was to be my last hamster for a few years. As Crenguţă lay dying, I vowed to spoil Valentina into the little furry princess of my heart. After her death I would delve into the world of guinea pigs and possibly chinchillas.

The discovery of Valentina’s corpse thwarted my maternal instincts. I was not ready yet to explore the other offerings of domesticated rodentia. I needed another hamster upon which to lavish adoration. Besides, I had stockpiled too many hamster luxuries to throw away.

I remembered that Sylvia of Small Animal Rescue had a sister and a brother of Valentina’s. I planned, in my forlorn state, to take in one of the siblings and make it up to Valentina’s memory by providing this family member with the care intended for Valentina.

Sylvia, however, had already sent her family to Vancouver Island. “Do you want me to ask for them back?” she asked. Sadly I declined. Valentina’s brother and sister had already found a good home.

Instead, Matt and I examined six other hamsters. The peachies, as Sylvia called them, were removed from a little girl’s bedroom on Knight Street. For six months the child had been breeding hamsters until her mother found the original two multiplied into twenty hamsters. Suddenly a dynasty of peachies were homeless.

Aside from my growing anger at parents who stupidly allow their kids to have pets and at petshops that sell animals, I am thankful at least that I can rescue one poor hamster.

Matt chose Lucian based on his appearance and his acrobatics.

Having only ever been a short-hair hamster owner, Lucian straddles both aspects of hamster fur: some of his fur is short, while in other places he sports a certain punk look. And the morning hair is cute beyond all similes.

Then there is his boxer’s nose. A squished up snout makes him look like he’s seen one matches too many, though his amicable personality puts him far off the pugilist spectrum. More likely the nose is a result of his monkey bar antics. For example, unlike other hamsters, he does not use the front door to get into his house - he paratroops into it, dangling from cage bar to cage bar and dropping into his bedding.

So much like royalty, the inauguration of his reign needs official portraits. Matt kindly complied to my requests, above and below.