It's Alive! It's Alive!!

So my wife comes home today after being away for the school vacation with the kids. After the usual unpacking and various other coming home after school vacation activities, my wife finds me outside in that yard doing some insane suburban yard work ritual and asks, "Honey, while we were away, did you feed the hamster?" in her usual sarcastic tone. I gulped and said, "no". I mean we keep the thing in the basement. I never even see the thing. She announces, "It's dead, you better go explain to the kids."

So I walk up to my sons room where he is playing with his sister and tell them the story. They react, "No problem Dad, it's OK. Can we look at it?" So we trudge down to the garage and there's the cage where my wife put it assuming that there is now a routine to pet burial since two years ago I made a "grave" for our first pet casualty, Bandit, out cat. Well, we all look into the cage and there is no movement but my son says he say the thing moving earlier when he was playing his computer game in the basement. So...I stare at it for a while, and sure enough, the thing is still alive. The kids are happy but now I'm thinking, jeez, the poor thing is on it's last legs and if I don't save the thing, I'll have to put it out of it's misery with a hammer to the head or some joyous activity like that. Not what I really wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon.

Well, I now become the hamster doctor. The thing is barely moving. I wrap it in a towel, give it water, try to feed it. Get not much response. Opened it's mouth and took out some long twig or something that must have lodge in its mouth preventing it from eating and drinking. Once that was out, I gave it water and tried to feed it. Just what I wanted to do when I was trying to finish that above mentioned insane suburban yard work ritual. Anyway, it's touch and go for a while but the thing actually starts to come around! Moves a little, takes in some water. Shivers so I put it on my chest. After about two hours and only being able to get water into it, I put it on the kitchen counter and what does it decide to do? It takes a walking tour of the whole kitchen. The kids are loving this because of course the thing is gonna survive now. And all I'm thinking about is the disgusting germs it is leaving on the counter.

So, time goes on, the thing starts to eat and function on it's own and in the eyes of my kids, Dad is a hero. Can't beat that feeling as a dad!

So later, when the kids are in bed and the hamster is back at home in it's cage still in the kitchen for observation, I look at it and begin to realize, I saved a life! I actually brought a near dead being back to life. I know it's basically a rat but the feeling was pretty intense. Pretty rewarding. Maybe it's related to plowing through chemo treatment for colon canner. Maybe it's just a pure human feeling that you get when you know you have done something unselfishly good. Who knows. Whoever thought that this little achievement would rise to the level of blogdom:-)

That's all for today.

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