Part 15: In which Billy becomes a hamster of means

Billy seemed ravenous that winter and was consuming sunflower seeds in astonishing quantities. I continued to put down fresh seeds each night, assuming that he had the metabolism of a hummingbird and required several times his own weight in food during the winter. Certainly I found only husks left each morning.

As I mentioned before, Baby was gone, Billy's toilet habits had become more conservative, and the run was large, so I was not as thorough in cleaning every inch as I had been before. I washed the visible floor and changed his latrine pad often, but I failed to lift up and clean under the big hut.

Then came a day when I felt the run needed a good going-over. As usual, I lured Billy away from the area being cleaned by keeping him occupied with food at the opposite end. (Cleaning days were always traumatic for him. He dashed frenetically around the run after I was done, and I was sure he was grumbling to himself, "Just when I get things smelling really good around here, the Big Hand comes and spoils it...")

As I started to lift the big hut, Billy uncharacteristically abandoned the seed he was working on and scampered toward me in a state of agitation.

He was agitated. I was stunned. He'd stashed enough seeds under the hut to last an entire colony of hamsters through a Siberian winter. He scrambled to the top of his pile and defied me to touch it. I hadn't the heart. The little guy had been busy: That wasn't just a pile of stale seeds but the culmination of his life's work.

I left Billy his stash, checking it regularly to be sure he'd added nothing perishable. I continued giving him fresh food every day, so that he wouldn't be tempted to snack on his aging hoard. Whenever I cleaned around the hut, lifting it to scrub around it, he dashed over to defend his pile like Scrooge McDuck guarding his money bin.

Billy had become a hamster of substance. He had left behind his tearabout frat boy days in the Delta Phi house and matured into Mr. William Hamster, a thrifty and forward-looking member of the hamster world. I started musing philosophically about how much there was to learn from Billy's simple life. All he did was eat, sleep, run in his wheel, and amass a pile of worthless seeds. Yet that was all it took to make him happy. If only my own life could be like that, I said to myself. Then I realized...hey, my own life IS like that.

It doesn't do to think deep thoughts about hamsters.