For a very short period of my childhood we had a pet hamster named Nibbles. When we received Nibbles from my cousin he was already an old pre-named hamster, but we loved him til his dying day. He still liked to hide places we couldn’t find him even in his old age, like under the couch, and he continued this habit until the day he died in a red plastic hamster cage tube. We were sad for Nibbles death, and my mom promised she would bury him while we were at school.

At the end of the day we come home to our acreage. It’s a nice place for a hamster to rest. There is quite a bit of manicured lawn, surrounded by trees and flowers. There’s also a creek that passes through the middle of the property, which could supply Nibbles with a resting place of tall grass and trees blowing in the wind. He wouldn’t be lonely because there are other pets buried at this homestead. We’ve had, and still had at that time, dogs and cats.

Joey and I wondered where our beloved hamster may be spending his afterlife while we walked up the porch to the front door. Waiting to greet us home was a barn cat, and at his feet, was a dead Nibbles. The horror! The trauma! Mom didn’t bury Nibbles- she flung him out in the tall grass thinking he was far enough away from the house we wouldn’t spot him.  What she didn’t anticipate was a friendly cat bringing us a trophy to the front door. Her toss of the fuzzy rodent must not have been far enough, or the cat was on a hamster hunting prowl that day. Either way we came home to a stiffened, mauled Nibbles, and a gloating cat.