2001-08-19 - 11:13 p.m.

No New Hammie

Today Lily and I had the melancholy task of trying to get a refund or exchange for poor departed Leet. I know that she just died yesterday, but we had to do it now or never: the seven days of their refund period ended today.

So we bundled up Leet's tiny remains in a couple layers of plastic bags and drove out to the mall where we had purchased her.

When we got there the girl behind the register had no interest in looking in the bag - just so long as we brought the receipt we had $8 store credit.

We went to where the hamster cages were and sure enough, the cage that little Leet had come out of was marked "Quarantined - Not For Sale. This confirmed what I was already 90% sure of anyway - Leet was already infected when we bought her. I was distressed to note that there only seemed to be about a third of the number of hamsters in the cage that there had been a week ago. The girl helping us out said that the rest had died.

That makes me sad, because the ones left in the cage are probably doomed, too.

In the other cage, where we got Pooka out of, there were still a few hamsters, but they all looked like Pooka, so I figured there was no point in getting another hamster. Instead, I got my $8 in overpriced hamster food. So it goes.

While I was figuring all this out, Lily was looking at some cute puppies that were scampering around the store. In fact, it looked like the little doggies had escaped. In fact, one of them took a dump right on the floor.

Lily picked up the other dog, a cute Pug puppy. He (or she) was friendly as could be and started licking her face while wriggling in her arms.

I know that Lily wants a dog, but I don't think I could stand having an animal wandering loose in my house. The two dogs that my family had while I was growing up were really not good experiences, and I'm not eager to repeat them. Lily, on the other hand, dearly loves the dogs she grew up with, so there you have it. Your opinions are formed by the associations you have with certain things.

However, neither one of us liked the way the puppies in the store were kept, in tiny cages barely a yard square. Many of the cages had two dogs in them, stumbling over each other.

Like I say, I'm not a big dog person, but I still don't like seeing that.

But the question is: when I'm desperate to sell a litter of baby hamsters again - will I go there again?