Fuzzy little balls of rage

--From the Hardin County News-Enterprise, March 4, 2004

I knew I'd ruined Valentine's Day when I accidentally threw my fiancee's hamster across the room. It started well enough. My young fiancée had bought a pet hamster a couple of days before, and the little guy was eating seeds and corn kernels from the palms of our hands. Then we let him -- or, heck, her; who can really tell? -- run around on the couch, scurrying on the armrests and burrowing between the cushions. It was positively precious. My fiancee -- we'll call her "Nina" because her parents do -- read online from the learned biologists at hamsterama.com that hamsters love being kept in cages with others just like them, so they can rub their adorable little noses together and curl into little fuzzy balls next to each other at night. All this cuteness got Nina feeling blue about how she'd so thoughtlessly ripped little Kirby the hamster away from all his little furry friends. There he was, asleep one afternoon next to all the other little hamlets, when that mean ol' pet store clerk scooped him up and stuffed him in a box that may or may not have once held Chinese takeout. How awful, my beloved decided. Never mind the Valentine's dinner reservations I'd made six months ago (or, McDonalds), we had to buy Kirby a friend before he kicked over from loneliness, a full six months before he would have died from old age anyway. Soon I was driving our new happy family home, and my sweet baboo was holding a carrier with Kirby and another takeout box with our nameless young friend. Nina decided to drop the newcomer into Kirby's cage so they could start gossiping and braiding each other's hair. Those adorable little creatures latched onto each other like Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie in Ultimate Fighting Championship Part 5, except biting and eye gouging were encouraged. My fiancée reached in and broke them up, and Kirby chomped her finger like the tip of a cigar. Nina was silent the rest of the way, a single tear trickling from her eye like those commercials with the litter-hating Indian. The image of her adorable little companions -- not to mention the flesh on her index finger -- had been ripped to a pulp. After assessing the situation at home, we decided there was no way the hamsterama.com guys could have failed us. We tried once again to initiate a lifelong friendship. Kirby and his new friend circled each other slowly, swallowing each other with their eyes and growing accustomed to one another's scent. The new hamster turned her back to stake out a new corner. Of course that's when Kirby struck again, attacking her like my editor assaults a buffet. Like a hero, I reached in. Kirby had bitten me before, but not like this. His teeth sunk into my skin like the Titanic in the north Atlantic. I jerked my hand back, fully expecting to be down a digit. Kirby just didn't want to let go, but he couldn't hold on. To Nina's horror, he sailed across the room, clanging against a garbage can in the corner. "Oh, my gosh!" she yelled. "Don't throw him! You've got to be gentle!" Nevermind that I had rabies. We took the new hamster back to the pet store five minutes after we bought her, dooming Kirby to a life of misunderstanding and loneliness, like the Incredible Hulk. Or so I thought. On the advice of zoologists at a better Web site, heavenlyhamster.com, Nina bought a new hamster while staying in Bowling Green. The heavenlyhamster.com guy said Kirby should get along fine with this one, so long as one of them is a female. Nina called and asked me to check Kirby and verify his sex; she had a hunch that dude might be a lady. All I'd have to do is turn him over and compare what I see to a grainy Internet photo she sent me. I looked over at Kirby, who was eyeing me suspiciously with his giant red peepers. It was a delicate job. I'll do it after my stitches are out.
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Movin' Out


It should have been the perfect week, the kind where in a movie Julie Andrews would run through living hills and sing “The Sound of Music.”
Instead, my last week in Mississippi before I moved to a new job in Evansville, Ind., was something out of a horror movie, the kind accompanied by spine-chilling John Carpenter piano licks.
My landlord gave me a wet willie, my bosses cracked the whip like lion tamers and Wal-Mart never had enough empty boxes lying around to hold my Maxim magazines. Then the plot thickened.
Packing up is hard work, so in a movie that part would be a montage accompanied by a song from someone who understands the life of hard-working folk, like Springsteen or Mellencamp or Cindi Lauper.
In true Meade County fashion, Dad was going to bring down his cattle trailer so I didn’t have to rent a U-Haul. But he couldn’t get his brakes to work. More than $500 later, I had me a rental truck. Not fun for little Harpo.
Then I had to break my apartment lease. Because I was moving 3 ½ states away instead of up the street, I thought my landlord might have sympathy on me. Yeah, right. On a soundtrack, that visit would have been accompanied by Heart’s “Barracuda.”
“Not only do you have to pay the extra $550, you have to give 30 days notice,” she said, stroking a white cat named she called Mr. Bigglesworth. “Since you didn’t give 30 days notice, you have to be charged for two other weeks you didn’t live here. And the $400 in deposits you gave us is nonrefundable. Sucker.”
Bum ba da bum bum bum — Barracuda!
I’m not good at typing out music.
Of course my bank had service charges for closing down my accounts. And don’t even get me started on my cell phone company. There’s a special spot in hell reserved for them, right next to the guy who wrote “Mr. Roboto.”
Since groceries don’t grow on trees—save for some members of the fruit family--I tried to eat all the food in my freezer so it wouldn’t go to waste. Instead, it went to my waist. That scene would be accompanied by “Maniac.” And no matter how much I ate, I couldn’t get rid of all the sausage and burger in my freezer.
I threw away all my condiments and gave a jug of tequila to my downstairs neighbor because she gave me some boxes. I thought about asking her if she wanted some sausage, but by law that question would cue ‘70s funk on the soundtrack.
Dad and my little brother loaded all my stuff onto the truck while my bosses kept me five hours over on my last day. We hit the highway the next day, before the rooster rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
Cue some Willie for the closing credits.
How could she know that this dancing bay pony meant more to columnist Jacob Bennett than life? For this was the horse that his little lost darlin’ had ridden when she was his wife. Don’t cross him, don’t boss him, he’s wild in his sorrow. He’s riding and hiding his pain. Don’t fight him, don’t spite him, just e-mail him at jacobmbennett@hotmail.com, maybe he’ll ride on again.