Sally and Gerard are two of the nicest people you could ever want to meet, they are both intelligent, vegetarian, and have a strong interest in non-violent philosophies, also they are always good company. Now, unlike some of our mutual acquaintances, I wouldn’t like to call them ‘bleeding heart liberals’, but at times they are a little soft. I remember clearly when our mutual friend Chris first got his snake. It was small, but attractive in a legless sort of way and after some observation you could imagine that it did have a character outside of its diminutive killer instinct.

It was pretty though, and we all like it and cooed over it when Chris brought it around to meet everybody. So everything was fine. Except that it was a very small snake and back then we lived in a small Bulgarian town that had only one pet shop. In Europe and America live food is easy to acquire, but here the choice was limited. Chris had not had his snake long before we started hearing complaints that it wasn’t eating.
“What, no interest?” I asked him when he first told us. “Try some live food”.
“That is what I’m trying,” he replied brusquely. Then launched into the full story of how his new love was too small to eat the baby mice he was buying for it. He spared us no details in his graphic description of the poor snakes luckless attempts to eat an over-sized baby mouse.

To give him his due he did try finding other live food for it, searching the local parkland, but the bleak weather was against him, and earthworms were just on the snakes menu apparently. He also told us how he had killed the baby mouse in his kitchen, and cut it in half in the hope of making the snake’s task easier. Two days later when we met he had a second baby mouse with him which he claimed was smaller. “Look” he showed it to us, “it is definitely smaller, maybe he’ll be able to handle this one, anyway if he can’t I’ll try killing it again.”

I was surprised to see that the ‘baby mouse’ was in fact a ‘baby hamster’, and as such far more attractive than a new-born mouse which is hairless, much smaller and barely able to move. Seeing this little ball of inherent cuteness scampering around in the bottom of its box I was not surprised at the ahhhs that emerged involuntarily from several of the throats around me. Nor was I surprised at the looks of disgust that wiped away the smiles as brains in various heads put two and two together.

A little later when the group had thinned out Chris left the box in the cafe with us and went out the back to the loo. The hamster continued to make skittering noises inside the box. Sally and Gerard looked at each other, looked at me, and then picked up the box.
“I’m Sorry.” Sally said as they they started to leave. “Tell Chris it escaped.”
“And it took its box with it I suppose” I suggested.
Gerard looked a little crest-fallen but Sally did not even blink an eye. Opening her handbag, and the box, she tipped the Hamster deftly into her handbag’s dubious interior, and stalked out, with Gerard, now smiling like a man who has just won a battle with his boss, following close behind. Throwing me the box she offered up a “thanks” over her shoulder as she left.

Soon enough Chris returned, saw the empty box on the table and looked at me questioningly.
“It escaped” I told him, resisting the several humorous options that ached to get out passed my lips. He hit the floor fast yelling. “Where? How long ago?” And “Don’t just sit there help me look.”
I dutifully got down on the floor waiting for the volcano to blow, Chris isn’t stupid. In due time the reaction occurred.
“Just a minute” he called from under an empty table, “Where are Sally and Gerard?” I didn’t have time to reply before he followed this with “Oh my God, the bastards.”

He climbed out from under the table, fumed incoherently for a few seconds, then he saw the funny side of it and laughed. “OK so they wanted a pet, no problem I’ll go get another one.” With this he left, throwing me a sarcastic “thanks” over his shoulder as he reached the door. And that I thought, is that. A pleasantly humorous interlude in an otherwise not so exciting afternoon. I returned to chatting up Plamena who worked behind the bar and who, despite seeing everything, had remained admirably quiet throughout the strange altercation between her foreign customers and friends.

I was surprised then when 20 minutes later Chris returned looking none to happy.
“Tell me” I prompted as I knew he would anyway.
“They have no baby mice left” he told me. “Its unbelievable. They had six half an hour ago when I chose that smallest one.”
“Well I don’t know.” I answered him casually. “They’ll have some more soon I expect, they are shop keepers after all.”
“Yeah” he agreed, “Friday I think.”
Now it is worth mentioning here, for the sake of the story, that Chris speaks only a minimal amount of Bulgarian, so he wouldn’t have been able to ask too many questions of the shop owners, and also that today was Tuesday.

Friday evening I met Chris and he was not in a good mood. “What the hell!” I asked him at his third tetchy remark. “Did I spike your beer?”
“No” he admitted somewhat shagrined. Then told me he had been to the pet shop each evening just in case they had some more baby mice, as he still called them, in early. “Even today there were none,” he said. “I don’t understand it.”
“They definitely said Friday” I asked.
“They did last Tuesday. Today they said next Tuesday.”
“Hmmm, oh well take it easy” I said. “The weather is improving. We’ll be able to catch some crickets this weekend if the sun stays with us.”
“You’ll help?” He asked. “The poor little guy, he’s sooo hungry.”
“Sure,” I told him.

Sunday saw the weather back to normal for the Balkan spring-time and we took a spade out to the fields south of the town and dug up a few Mole Crickets in short time, I also caught him a few grasshoppers just in case. On my suggestion Chris removed the mandibles and front claws from one of the crickets and was delighted when the snake accepted it and had is dinner at last.

This would have been the end of the story only Chris has a stubborn streak in him and he had his heart set on feeding his snake a baby mouse, so unknown to me he kept visiting the pet store. Then one day a month or more later he brought the subject up again.
“Its weird” he told me. “They keep telling me they will have baby mice in the future, but they never have any when I get there.” It took me a few seconds to catch up with his train of thought.
“Well how should I know, perhaps their supplier is letting them down or something.” I responded. “Don’t worry about it there’s loads of invertebrate stuff around now.” I had something else on my mind at the time and didn’t think I had any further interest in the problem. I was wrong.

As fate would have it I was soon to learn more than I could have dreamed of. A few days later Sally asked me shyly, “Gordon would you like a hamster?”
“Tired of it already,” I answered teasingly.
“Well no its beautiful but ---well----look. Listen. I know it seems stupid now, but we just couldn’t let Chris go on killing them, they’re way too sweet.”
‘Them....’, a little light fluttered in my mind.
“You bought all the other baby hamsters as well that day didn’t you,” I accused her gently.
“Yes” she smiled, “and all the others.”
“All what others” I asked, I’ll admit to being a little slow sometimes or perhaps my mind just refused to believe its own conclusions.
“Gerard and I have been buying all the baby hamsters the shop gets in before Chris could,” she told me.

I guess I must have looked a picture for a few seconds, I was trying to look both shocked and sympathetic and to burst into hilarious laughter all at the same time. I lost the battle and laughed inanely. “Oh Sally.” I put my hands around her head “You two are beautiful, never mind the hamster, ... or hamsters. OK I’ll look after a few, how many have you got?”
“Sixty three” she told me, “We’ve had three deaths so far.”
I cracked up again, I laughed so hard I nearly died. “What on earth are you doing with them?” I asked.”
“Feeding them, cleaning them, what do you expect?” she replied calmly.

Eventually I got myself under control again and apologised for my childish nature.
“Give it up!” I told her. “He only wants to feed it one then he’ll be much happier with crickets, the snake likes them now”. She looked heart broken for a moment then she smiled.
“Yes I suppose you’re right, we just didn’t think it through, and then we were on this crazy rollacoaster and there was no way off.” She continued. “Yes, OK, we’ll let him buy one when the next lot comes in. But what can we do with the rest, we go back to the US in six months, whose going to look after them all, where are we going to find homes for 63 hamsters in this town. The shop owners tell us they normally only sell about 6 a month, sometimes even less. Oh lord, where do we find homes for them all?”