The day my hamster died

Remembering Dimples
By Bubba Blubber
Guest editorialist

Having read Joe’s tragic tearjerker over at Debunking Christianity, I want to thank Steve Hays for giving me the chance to post my own three-hanky at Triablogue.

January 2, 2004 was the worst day of my life. Never has a day come close to equaling it in sheer horror and regret. I would give my very life to take back the pain I caused and felt on that dark, loathsome day.

Many regretful things can happen in a person's life. If I cared to, I know I could rack up a list of lesser tragedies, like the day my dad was burned alive in a car crash, or the time my kid brother was run over by a drunk driver, or the morning my older brother lost his battle with leukemia.

This was something different. On that day, I took a life. I put Dimples, my pet hamster, to sleep.

We called her Dimples cuz when she ate her cheeks went all chipmunky.

Like her father before her, Dimples had severe hip dysplasia which made it difficult for her to walk, so when she got excited, instead of running on her exercise wheel, she would sort of gallop around the yard in a wild, horse-like manner. She was cute to watch. She developed many other health problems though, miscellaneous in nature, and virtually impossible to treat. There came a time when this affected her behavior to the point where she was rambunctious and out of control. As she grew, she was in greater pain from her hips growing more and more crooked. We couldn't afford to have the surgery to replace them, and their was no guarantee it would be successful anyway. So after a long period of thinking over the matter, we decided it was best to have her put down.

So what's the big deal, Bubba? Sick beloved pets get put down all the time. It's a painful part of life, but one that we all get over, right? Here's where things went woefully wrong.

Being a cheapskate I was way too chintzy to have her put to sleep by a Veterinarian. I thought it would be so easy, so over and done with! There was no way I could prepare myself for what was to happen, not in a thousand years.

I won't go into the graphic details. That would be unnecessary. Let me just say, the cutlery and household appliances did not exactly do what they were supposed to do in bringing about a quick death. Everything that could have gone wrong that night did.

First I tried to nuke her in the microwave oven, but the circuit blew. Then I tried to gas her in the garage with the car running, but she escaped through a rat-hole back into the living room. Then I doused her in lighter fluid and set her on fire, but she dove into the dog’s water dish. Then I tried to decapitate her with a meat cleaver, but I couldn’t see straight through my tears, so I kept chopping away, an ear here, and paw there, until I gave up. Then I tried to feed her through a meat grinder—tail first—but the grinder jammed, so I had to extract her, minus the tail.

Dimples suffered so as to make anyone watching pass out in disgust. I am surprised I didn't. I can still hear her groans, and see her twitching in anguish, while profusely panting. The agony and unparalleled shock that filled her eyes was probably the worst part of it all. I distinctly remember trying to comfort her, and at the same time, trying to hurry and get it over with. Her accusing eyes glanced up at mine with a question from her I only wished I could have answered, "Why, master, did you have to be such a cheapskate?"

Finally, her last spasm came and went, and she died. I can remember staring non-responsively at her now motionless body before digging her grave.

The goriest horror movie had nothing on this occasion. I was literally covered in blood. I remember the horrible sight of torn flesh and the smell, that awful, unmistakable smell of burning flesh, carbon monoxide, and blood spilt. It stayed in my nostrils for two months it seemed. Sometimes I think I still catch a whiff of it. If only I could be so lucky as to forget that event, but I know I never will.

This broke me psychologically. I was shocked beyond words while it was happening. It was as though my mind was outside of myself, watching things happen. I couldn't believe it was going on. I drove back home in a state of delirium from what had transpired, hating myself for thoughtlessly and carelessly causing this because I was too damn stingy to do things the assuredly humane way. I now had an intimate acquaintance with death like never before. I slept for two straight days upon arriving back at the house. I couldn't eat for about a week. Nightmares and tears were a regular part of my life for the next few weeks.

As life went on, this came back to haunt me from time to time. On several occasions I was taken suddenly in tears, this on more than one occasion. I wandered over to Dimple's grave and found myself talking in the air to her, as though I believed she was still around me and listening as I told her I'm sorry and wished she could have understood. There were those initial moments of absolute desperation, when, holding out my hand, I found myself hoping that maybe, just maybe, Dimples would come through the veil of the netherworld and nose my hand with her spirit snout. Of course, that never happened. I knew better than that anyway, but grief messes with your head.

That event changed me forever. But I don't need sympathy, nor encouragement. I am a stoic person, a realist. I deal with what life sends my way. Indeed, I have no other alternative. I've counseled many in grief and know to apply to myself what I preached to others, that no matter how bad one may feel, life will still go on. My life has gone on like I knew it would. Each new day comes and goes all the same. Sometimes I think back on the sadness of that night, and the whole memory of the experience engulfs me like a stormy cloud of doom for a time until I can shake it from me. At other times, and for the most part, I put it behind me and go on with my life, chalking it up to just another unfortunate thing of the past.

I came to terms with the fact that I was the cause of Dimple's suffering. I also came to terms with the fact that I will never see Dimples again. I have only her memories left, and no matter how bad I would love to believe that I will someday see my loved ones again, I have no reason to assume I will. Just because I want, like anything, to believe something, just because a certain ideal would bring me fabulous inner-warmth and great comfort, and just because the alternative is grim and disheartening, does not give me just cause to subscribe to irrationality, such as the idea of "life after death." The grave is the end for us all, yet instead of getting depressed about it, I have made the decision to not only expect it, but even appreciate it.

I'll admit that I am setting myself up as a positive example here of allowing reckless emotion and sentimentality to hold sway over sober reason, but this is not the goal of my article. The point of my article is to make clear to the readers and commentators of Debunking Christianity that infidels, like anyone else, can be hypocritical, cold-hearted cads.