Back in the early 1950s, Dad almost crashed the company car when an escaped hamster darted across his lap in the late-night hours of a business trip.
Purchased as a family pet, it later was found as a dehydrated mummy burrowed in a seat cushion.
Introduced to American households in 1945, the cuddly domesticated nocturnal beasties quickly forced purchases of accessories such as wire wheels, water bottles and vast networks of clear plastic tubes for intraroom travel.
Boys used to let hamsters crawl up their pants legs and emerge through unbuttoned flies. What fond memories.
Compared to other rodents, hamsters don't have the ugly personas of rats, mice, guinea pigs, gophers, moles and nutria.
They don't have the liveliness of squirrels, gerbils, prairie dogs, chipmunks and chinchillas.
Their teeth aren't as large as those of beavers, ground hogs and woodchucks. And hamsters certainly don't have the painful weapons of porcupines.
But only hamsters can be taught to ride through tunnels on the flatcars of model trains.
Oh, by the way, rabbits are not rodents--contrary to popular belief. (6 DECEMBER 2009)
