I am currently debating the prudence of getting my soon to be 5 year old daughter a pet, but as I’ve had rather negative dealings with hamsters in the past, you can be sure she won’t be getting one of those.

When I was 6, my family lived in Eden Praire, Minnesota. I wanted a pet I could keep in my room.  First, my parents got me a gerbil and a Habbitrail set–this modernist plastic cage with see through tubes and small nesting areas (they still sell them).  They also got my brother Mark a gerbil and cage set-up.  Well my gerbil didn’t last long, several days later that unfortunate creature broke its neck when it got stuck in a elbow section of the Habbitrail.  I was very upset and cried but Mark laughed, apparently tempting the poetic justic Gods because his hamster froze to death (inside the house!  That’s Minnesota in the winter for you) that very same night.  To replace the gerbil, my parents bought me a hamster I for some reason named Buffy (the Habbitrail however, went in the trash). 

He lasted at least a few months and then made his escape.  He was gone a long time and we assumed that he had gotten out of the house and died-we were partially correct.  One day my mom’s friend’s visiting British daughter was in the laundry room and noticed that the sink was not draining.  So she attempted to pull out the obstruction which I imagine she thought was a hair clog-once again, partially correct.  She screamed bloody murder and we all ran in.  She had extracted the corpse of my poor hamster Buffy from the pipe; the corpse was unnaturally elongated from the suction.  I have no idea how the poor creature came to such an end, but sufficed to say I did not get any more small rodents as pets.