Second Chances…

I talked to my granddaughter, Lola, last night. She was sooooo excited. She was talking a mile a minute. I could barely understand what she was saying…I thought she was talking about a fish. I asked her what color the fish was. I think she said black…but she was talking so fast. I was envisioning that maybe she caught a fish. She and her dad have gone fishing in the lake near their house. I was excited too. Then her mom translated…Lola got a hamster! Oh dear I thought…not a hamster!

They are cute…so are puppies and kittens…and it seems when our children are young we think they should have one. My children had a hamster (or two) and I thought they were the best pets…until…

One evening I heard something in the middle of the night. I woke my husband. He listened and thought someone was trying to break in. I had a gun…I thought about getting it out of the closet but remembered that the bullets were somewhere else in the house. My dad bought it as a gift for me. He thought I needed it for protection. I was afraid of guns so I hid the bullets. I thought about just getting it anyway and holding it…they wouldn’t know it wasn’t loaded. I heard it again…someone was breaking into our house. I grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. My heart was racing as I listened to the sound of a burglar. As I stood there frozen, afraid to move…I realized it was coming from the bathroom…then it dawned on me…I slowly opened the bathroom door…the burglar was our pet hamster. He had escaped during the night. The police arrived…I was embarrassed…it was 3:00 a.m. Thank goodness they were understanding…I think they were laughing as they left my house.

Then there was the time when we were living in Colorado. Yep, I got another hamster. A teddy bear hamster and he was adorable. I kept him in the spare bedroom downstairs so he wouldn’t wake us up at night. They spin for hours in that wheel. It was a cold winter morning and when I went downstairs to change his cage he didn’t look right. I picked him up and he was cold. I felt horrible…he appeared to be frozen…I killed him I thought. I left him in that cold room and he froze to death. I liked this hamster…I liked him a lot…I put his tiny body in my hands and held him…I don’t know why…it sounds a little morbid holding a dead hamster…but I did. I held him for quite some time and to my surprise he came back to life. Apparently he wasn’t dead….

This is not Lola’s first hamster…Skippy was! Skippy was a brown hamster that lived with them for approximately a month. One day Skippy disappeared…hmmm…sounds familiar. Skippy was missing for over two weeks. Amanda and the kids came to FL to visit during Skippy’s disappearance. She left the cage out…hoping he would return to it. He did not. She received a call…her house was flooded. She lived in a duplex and the neighbor’s house was getting flooded too. This was not good news. To make a long story short…her icemaker line had been chewed on….hmmmmmm

Lola’s new hamster is all black with tiny black eyes and she loves him. He sounds adorable. Amanda has taken precautions to secure the cage…I reminded her that she has two toddlers and one of them in particular may figure out how to get that cage open…she reminded me of second chances…

She named him “Skippy”…Skippy number 2…

I hope you all have a Wonderful Wednesday…

Second chances…Make a Difference…