Hamsters, Birth Control, and Me — A Cautionary Tale

When I was a boy, I came into possession of two young hamsters. Due to the infinitesimal nature of rodent genitalia, I found it very difficult to figure out the sex of my new pets. Nature informed me a few weeks later, when a batch of hamster pups arrived. All I could think about was how badass these hamsters were, becoming parents after being alive for less than two months. Where had they learned this behavior? Why would they choose to become pregnant at such a young age? I began to get the feeling that even if I had given them “the talk,” they would have gone and had weird hamster sex on each other anyways. As it happened, the hamster mom ended up eating all the babies after a few days. Why would she do that? I did some reading, and found that if a mother hamster feels that her pups are in danger, she’ll eat them. It’s better to be eaten on purpose by someone you love than to be hypothetically harmed by a stranger, or so goes Rodent Philosophy. During my research, I also learned that these critters pump out babies like a soft-serve machine. The proverbial hamster wheel in my head began to turn:

“There’s a pet store near here. Pet stores always need pets. I can provide those pets. There’s all these squirrels running amok in the yard, and if I can catch a few of those, I bet the store would give me some money for them.”

So I went and chased squirrels for a few hours, with nothing to show for it but scratched legs and a slightly increased knowledge of local acorn reservoirs. While I was rubbing dirt in the wounds, it hit me: “Wait a second, why am I chasing squirrels, when the geese in the park are bigger, slower, and probably easier to catch?”

A couple hours later, as I was splashing pond water on my goose bites, I had another thought — “Why am I trying to catch geese to sell to a pet store when I have two young, horny hamsters at home?”

So began Project-Make-My-Hamsters-Get-Pregnant-A-Lot-And-Sell-The-Babies-To-The-Local-Pet-Store, and naturally, a rigorous breeding regimen. Soon enough, they had another batch. I tried to make the mother feel as safe as possible, in order to avoid another cannibalization of the herd, as it were. It worked. Once the babies were big enough, I brought them to the pet store. I had spent the entire morning cleaning out my wallet to make room for all the money I was about to have in there. After demanding to see the manager, I was informed that they don’t take undocumented hamster children. I in turn informed him that maybe they should have a sign outside the store that says “We Don’t Buy Hamster Babies,” and therefore save us all some time. So I flipped him off, threw the hamsters in a garbage can on the way out, and became addicted to hardcore street drugs.

The moral: had those hamsters had access to birth control, none of this would have happened.