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Hamster Hysteria

A. C. Lippert

    My apartment didn’t allow pets. The complex was named Campus View, but there was no view of campus. The sliding glass door in the living room and the small outdoor balcony overlooked a crowded parking lot. And my bedroom window stared at the green siding of the neighboring frat house. Some view. East Lansing was a splendid place. Most of my friends rented historic houses that still had fingerprints of days long gone, yet still had enough renovations to keep up with the standards of style and comfort for modern-day spoiled brats. And everyone else lived with their friends. They were all close enough to hear each other puking in the bathroom and feel each other’s headboards thumping against a shared wall. Desperately, I wanted that. But my dad and I had struck a deal that he would pay for tuition and books, while I covered rent and groceries. That was how I ended up renting a one-bedroom dump that included special amenities like loneliness, self-hatred, and jealousy. It was all I could afford. So, I did the next best thing and bought a pet hamster, which completely uprooted my quiet, dumb, solitary life.
    It was Saturday morning in early March. The sky was a ceiling of gunmetal grey clouds. Puddles had pooled in the parking lot and the grass looked slick and shiny, even though the weather forecast had foretold no rain. March was always cold and wet and dark and sullen and sucked ass. I would have rather slept in a tub of dog diarrhea for a month than suffer March’s weather.
    I got out of my car and started across the parking lot towards Campus View. I tried not to jostle the plastic travel crate too much, but I yawned so wide that my jaw hurt and dropped him. I caught the crate mid-air and my hamster seemed ok. But it scared me. It was 12:10. This was still early for me. I had chronic fatigue in those days, and I liked to sleep. So sue me. It was hitting fast-forward and skipping a few hours. It was a free pass. A staycation. It was like playing hide and seek with life. Today, I worked at 1 o’clock. I made sure the travel cage was secure and hustled towards the door because there was still a little time to get acquainted with my new friend.
    My apartment was nice and warm. I threw my jacket on the couch and pressed the television’s power button while passing. Background noise was good. And I figured that I’d leave something playing when I left so my new hamster didn’t think that I abandoned him after just meeting as if he had made a bad first impression. I had watched the Spartans’ basketball team get embarrassed by Ohio State last night. A mobster movie was on the channel now. I glanced around for the remote and couldn’t find it. I thought he would like The Other Guys, something funny and clever and silly. Plus, Will Ferrell kind of looked like a gigantic hamster. I hoped my hamster had a sense of humor. I wanted a friend that would bring levity to my days, not act as a pair of cement shoes. There wasn’t room in this tiny apartment for two downers. I figured that animals were good judges of mood, and that he’d be smart enough to distinguish something playful from something grave. This gangster flick was fine for now, but I’d be sure to change the channel before I left. Such violent content might corrupt him or something. Four Italian mobsters crept up the street in a black Cadillac Coupe DeVille and shot out of the windows at a small house. The volume was loud. The gunshots sounded real. My band-geek neighbor was probably pissed, but she played that god-damned clarinet whenever she god-damned-wanted. Sometimes musical inspiration struck at 5 a.m. and the entire apartment building sounded like a Star Wars cantina. Practicing my ass. Fuck her. I hoped she dove to the floor and army-crawled around to find cover, thinking she was really under fire.
    I opened the travel cage’s door and held my hand out as a platform. It took a couple minutes for the hamster to place a paw on my clammy palm and test its sturdiness. He eventually crawled out all the way.
    “Hey, watch it,” I said. He padded towards the edge like he wanted to jump. I dropped the travel cage and cupped both hands. “You’d probably die. Be careful . . . . . . . . . pal.”
    I realized that I hadn’t thought about names at all. I didn’t even know if this hamster was a hamster-he or a hamster-she. The salesman hadn’t told me, and it was too late now. I hadn’t even thought about asking. And I certainly didn’t want to flip him over and inspect for little hamster nuts. But I’d probably give him a guy’s name. Something like Rambo. Or Monster. Or Guy. I wanted him to be male. And what did it matter? Like Shakespeare asked, why would a hamster care about names when they didn’t know what a name was? Was a mislabeled hamster not just as fluffy? If called something else, would a hamster not twitch their nose like a cocaine-addict? I would contemplate names at work. I’d need something to do anyways. Being a cashier for a big-box store was mind-numbing. I always thought the training videos should have included a segment about how to prevent drooling and developing brain damage from idleness and demoralization. I even sent in an anonymous suggestion to corporate. I wasn’t sure they received it because nothing changed.
    “What am I going to call you?” I asked him. His paws tickled as I lowered him into his new home. His nose twitched before getting down onto the soft aspen shavings at the bottom of the cage. His fur brushed against my hands. It was so soft. Mink coat soft. His fur was tiger orange, but he had a white streak down his back and a white band around his neck. For the time being, I decided to call him Monster.
    I had bought the cage and supplies last night. It had taken 2 hours and 5 Keystone Lights to set up. But it was shaped like a rocket ship and it was awesome. It was so cool that I would have lived there if it was human-sized, anything would be more exciting than living alone in a tasteless sugar-cookie-cutter apartment, a human cage, with no views, especially none of campus. The cage had several levels for Monster to play. Each was connected by a tunnel network made of blue and red transparent plastic so I could watch him scurry through. This had taken the most time to set up.
    Monster investigated his new home. He inspected a tunnel’s opening. His movements were timid, until he was sure that the entrance wasn’t the yawning jaws of a weird snake, then he waddled over to the water dispenser and nibbled a few drops. It looked like he enjoyed being a hamstronaut. The way he walked around reminded me of being a kid, landing in the spongy woodchips while sliding down a slide or jumping off the swings. The closer Monster got to The Spin Cycle 5000; my legs started to jitter. As soon as I saw it yesterday, I knew that I had to get it. I knew that this was the hamster wheel for my new friend, even though I hadn’t picked him out yet. It had been the most expensive accessory. And I really shouldn’t have splurged on it, but it was the best hamster wheel on planet earth, the universe if my little hamstronaut decided to use his rocket ship to blast off into outer space. It was large. It looked like a Ferris wheel standing in the middle of the cage. Last night, I had picked it up and spun it around as hard as I could. It had spun like friction didn’t exist. There were no squeaks and it whirred with speed.
    The Spin Cycle 5000 was white and splattered with neon tie-dye and a black line wound out in a concentric circle that looked like the infamous black asp, coiled around and around, that dispatched of Cleopatra. It looked like an art project made by a stoned Herman Rorschach. Monster lifted his front paws onto the wheel and then struggled to get his stubby back legs up. He looked chubby. His fur could have made him look that way, but the Spin Cycle 5000 would keep my little fluffball friend busy and carve him into a fearsome beast, a mutant that could have his own comic book, Hamster Hunk, who saved hamster heroines from the Evil Eagle. Monster started to walk. At first, he looked drunk. Then his steps started to even out and he gained more confidence and momentum with each step. Soon, he was a juggernaut. When Monster ran, the splattered neon colors blurred together, and the black spiral popped out from the bright background and it swirled like a psychiatrist’s optical illusion used to hypnotize patients. My eyes started to stick, then became glued. Around. And around. My body went rigid and limp simultaneously. My thoughts seemed to carry less weight. I lost control of them. The world became surreal. Nothing but a dream. I forgot that Monster was even there. Nothing existed, except for that corkscrewing black spiral, sucking me in, deeper and deeper by the second, as if it had its own gravity. Around. And Around. And around. And around. And around.
    “You’re a Deadman,” I heard from behind. The voice was gruff, Machiavellian. My knees locked and a sticky tentacle of fear curled around my heart and squeezed. “Everyone take a good look. This is what a ghost looks like. You lousy son of a bitch. You damned prick. I’ll send someone to check-up on you shortly. You’re leaning over the edge of a hand-dug grave. It’s only a matter of time before someone creeps behind you and shoves. Now get the hell out of here. You make me sick.”
    I straightened up and scanned the apartment. I could’ve sworn that I saw a shadow dance across the bedroom doorway. The bedroom was dark. I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew someone else was in the apartment. Their presence was palpable, as if I could feel their breath. I had to get the hell out of there. I scrambled across the room and grabbed my coat and Sam’s Club vest and nametag and keys off the couch and bolted through the front door. I didn’t bother locking it. If an intruder was inside, what was the point? It would just waste time and prolong my danger. I still heard the TV blaring while hustling down the hall. But I was already on the move. A million dollars couldn’t have gotten me back into that apartment. Monster was on his own now. He was cute and soft and cuddly and fluffy. No one would hurt him, probably. He could fend for himself.
    While hurrying through the parking lot, my eyes were peeled and searching. I reached the car, checked the backseat for stowaways, locked myself inside, and threw it in gear. I drove through the parking lot and wasn’t sure where to go. My mind became flashcards. A picture of snow-capped mountains. A little motel in the Sonoran Desert with drifts of sand covering the parking lot and tumbleweeds rolling across a lonely highway. Thick woods in the Upper Peninsula. Canada, but I hated Canadian people. They were too nice. My mind felt like a vacation slideshow gone crazy. I looked down at the blue vest and nametag in my lap and realized that I worked in 20 minutes.
    A bump came from the trunk when I reached the mouth of the parking lot. I screeched to a halt and listened. All was quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that it was proof of someone’s presence. I couldn’t move my limbs, my hands quaked, and I felt my dick growing and hardening into a full-blown boner. I was scared stiff. I had heard of this happening to soldiers during their first combat experience, an adrenaline spike. I took several slow, deep breaths to calm down.
    There was an unopened can of Mountain Dew in the cupholder. I grabbed it, got out of the car, and walked around to the trunk. With my arm cocked back, ready to chuck the can of pop at whoever was in my trunk, I threw up the tailgate. And, nothing. There was just two bag of pop cans I had to return and my tennis bag. But this could have been a trap. Someone could have wanted me to get out of the car.
    The drive to work was stressful. My eyes were hummingbird wings. I checked a different mirror or window each second. And I had a new worry each second. Was someone creeping into my lane? Was anyone tailgating? Why was that truck driving so slowly? Did I recognize that car? It looked familiar. Were they following me? “Car accidents” happened all the time in movies. Snipped brake lines. Bashing a car off the road so they drove off a cliff. East Lansing didn’t have any cliffs, but that was beside the point. I was in danger. I was under attack. Someone was out to hurt me, and I knew it, like a memory. I imagined a hospital bed that already had the covers pulled back, waiting.
    I slowed and stopped at a red light. Cars fell into place around me like Tetris blocks. I checked the rearview mirror. The driver behind me was picking her nose. She looked like an MSU student. I looked at the car on my right, in front of me, and to the left. I couldn’t see the driver in front of me. I’d have to keep an eye ahead. I didn’t like this situation. Not one bit. I was stranded with no egress. If I spotted someone getting out of their car, I would have to book it, but still, I wasn’t a sprinter. I was a sitting duck. I pressed the lock button 10 times. But the windows were just glass. The driver on my right was a grandma that hunched so far forward that her saggy tits pressed against the steering wheel. The driver on my left was a middle-aged black man who wore a blue dress shirt and red tie. He had thick glasses and a thin mustache. He picked up a Wendy’s cup and drew at the straw. He looked like a cartoon villain that had walked off the page, going to work during the hours he wasn’t plotting and terrorizing. He acted casual, unassuming. But that was how someone would want to look if they were sent to kill me. I was too wary for that charade. There was a slight twitch in his eyes. If I wasn’t boxed in, I would’ve run the red light. I stared straight at the man. My eyes were so wide they must have looked like golf balls. I felt along the radio for the volume knob and silenced it. The man set down his drink and I caught him looking over at me. He saw me watching. He knew that I had caught him. It was written all over his face. He faced forward and looked out the window, antsy to leave because his cover was blown. He drag-raced away from the light once the car in front moved. I had won this round. But I knew that this wasn’t over and that he, or someone else, would be back.
    I parked in the Sam’s Club parking lot. There was still 5 minutes before my shift started. The danger felt slightly abated, so I got out of my car and slipped into my blue vest and secured my nametag into place. The hem under the armpits was discolored and a little frayed from sliding thousands of items across the scanner.
    I hustled through the retail maze and entered the employee break room. The rest of the new shift crew was already there. I mostly worked with college kids. There were a couple of adults like the pudgy, fifty-year-old Marla that had twin high school seniors that were champion Salsa dancers. Her hair was flat and full of split ends. It was a light chestnut color, but there were so many gray hairs coming in because she hasn’t dyed it in so long that her hair looked like the nasty grey color of sewer water. Marla was delightful. Although, could she have had ties to Mexican Cartels? Her husband Jose was a little rough around the edges. And I didn’t know what he did for a living. Taylor was on the other side of the room, leaning against the fridge. We locked eyes for a millisecond before I inspected the tops of my Nike Free Runs. Taylor was gorgeous. Sparkly emerald eyes, high cheekbones, and a very symmetrical face. I was embarrassed to look in Taylor’s direction sometimes.
    “Hi guys,” I said. I panned around and sized everyone up and assessed their threat level. My eyes halted on Taylor. “It feels great to be back at Sammie’s club.”
    Everyone chuckled. Five cashiers and eight floor workers, all waiting in Purgatory to be transferred to Hell. There were rows of employee lockers to store personal belongings, but I never used them. Like always, I had left my coat in the car. Using a locker made me feel invested in this job, when in reality I was just biding my time.
    “I like that,” Taylor said and cocked a crooked smile my way. Taylor was more beautiful than Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner combined. Because this Taylor was real. We stood in the same room. I could walk five paces and run my fingers over goose bumped flesh. If only I could get permission. Taylor and I locked eyes again. But could Taylor be trusted? That was the question. Maybe playing along with my pithy little joke and locking eyes was a ploy to edge nearer and nearer until Taylor was close enough to reach out and stab me in the back. Literally and figuratively. And why the hell would Taylor want anything to do with me? I had a consistent case of bedhead, I pursued a useless performing arts degree, and I was plagued with a minor speech impediment.
    “I call it Sammie’s club sometimes because it sounds more like I work at a cool night club than an off-brand Costco.” My voice was level, but my guts were squirming. Taylor had started working at Sam’s Club 5 weeks and 4 days ago, and that was when my crush had begun. We shared smiles and pleasant little conversations most days. I wanted to trust Taylor. It killed me that I couldn’t.
    I made it through two hours of my shift before feeling like a shaken up can of Coke, fizzing inside and ready to explode. I wasn’t sure if I could take anymore. Every person I rang up was my potential murderer. I examined their demeanor, their posture, their eyes, but most of all, I watched their hands. Were the muscles tensed? Were their movements quick and graceful? What did they touch? Did they fidget? I also looked for weapons. I was just waiting to see a bulge under a man’s shirt or a knife blade glint in a woman’s purse. I was ready to fight at the first sign of trouble. When I had first started my shift, I had weighed up my options for weapons around the cash register. I had found a pair of scissors and sat them next to the cash register’s keyboard. My plan was to snatch the scissors at the first sign of trouble, jam them into my attacker’s neck or eye, and run. I even had my escape route mapped. Most people would think that I would dash straight for the front door, but no. I was too wary for that. I would run through the store, using the aisles and products as cover. I would be much more difficult to track that way. Staying vigilant was imperative. Action always beat reaction. But I was jumpy and the constant fear and assessment was draining.
    Being a cashier was like running in place on my own Spin Cycle 5000. I was Sisyphus, herding more and more sheep through my register chute, never making any real progress. There were slow spells, sometimes. During these rare spells of boredom, I played a game called Grocery Guess. I watched customers waddle through the automatic doors and tried to guess what they’d bring to the register. One correct item was worth a point. Two was worth five. And three was worth ten. The points were meaningless. I just wanted the game to have a reward. It was like meeting someone and trying to guess their car based on their attitude. It was nearly impossible, but every once in a while, the stars would align, and someone would waltz up to my counter with the exact items I imagined. Being omniscient for an instant was so satisfying. I played Grocery Guess now. Although, instead of guessing what color panties a middle-aged woman would hide under a frozen bag of beef ravioli, or which brand of tequila the balding man in his young 30s that looked like he had been on a year-long bender would lug to the register, I guessed my potential murderer and their choice of weapon.
    About an hour ago, I had been sure that a fat man with a little-league baseball bat was going to club me over the head. His eyes caged a wild look. He put the bat on the conveyor belt and backed off. He stepped forward towards the bat after I scanned it and I had yelled “not yet. Stay back.” He had obeyed. I was glad I had caught him. His sluggish movements probably saved at least one of our lives. He was there to bash my brains in with a baseball bat. And I was on the verge of stabbing him with scissors. After putting money down on the counter, he trudged away, head down, knowing that I watched his every movement.
    That had been the closest call so far. And the store was busy. Now, a mousey college chick approached the conveyor belt and unloaded groceries from her cart. It was mostly pomegranates, cereal, the fixings for salad, and shampoo. She had taken her coat off and draped it over the cart’s handle. She had platinum blonde hair, black fingernails, and held her chin high as if wearing an invisible neck brace. Her black t-shirt had a picture of Freddie Mercury and said “We Will Rock You” in large print. I considered whether this was subliminal messaging. When she had entered the store, I guessed that she had a poisoned dart hidden in her cleavage.
    The girl leaned over and reached for a rebellious pack of Oreos at the bottom of the cart. The arms of her t-shirt were cut out and I could see her silky black bra when she bent over. I looked to search for the poisoned dart that could have been hidden in her cleavage and noticed her breasts were two perfect scoops of vanilla ice cream caressed in black cups. I imagined cocking my head and licking them like a soft serve cone. My fantasy melted away when I spotted a man out of the corner of my eye. A tall, slender black man with a thin mustache and thick glasses entered the store. He looked like a cartoon villain that had walked off the page. This was my assassin. He had changed outfits since I last saw him, but I recognized him from the traffic light. He now wore a gray North Face jacket. He was back to finish the hit.
    “Hello?” The girl asked as I stared over her shoulder. After surveying the store, the man turned away and walked towards the electronics section and disappeared behind a row of stainless-steel refrigerators. “Are you okay? “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “No. You’re looking at a ghost,” I replied.
    The girl looked at me as if I’d pulled a dildo out of my nose. I tried to hurry and keep an eye out for The Villain during the rest of the transaction, which made things worse. I fumbled for words. My fingers wouldn’t hit the right register buttons. The chick seemed weirded out and scampered away the moment the receipt started printing.
    The Villain approached as soon as the Queen chick pushed her cart away because he wanted me all to himself. There was a certain look that disgruntled men wore when they were ordered here by their wives, or women sported when they weren’t happy to be doing their weekly grocery shopping, and this wasn’t it. The Villain’s face seemed grave, business-like, as if he had murdered hundreds of people in cold blood and had grown immune to nerves. His North Face Jacket was unzipped. He wore a Cincinnati Bengals graphic tee underneath that was old and faded and part of the B was flaked away so it looked like the Cincinnati l engals. He set down a pack of AA batteries and an extension cord on the conveyor belt.
    Both of these items could be weapons. If The Villain wanted to torture me, he might hogtie me with the extension cord, break open the batteries and drip the acid all over my body. Or he could stuff the batteries down my throat and up my nose until I choked.
    I glanced over a couple registers and my heart melted because this would be the last time I laid eyes on Taylor.
    The Villain and I opened our mouths to speak at the same time, yet both stopped to let the other go first. A thick, viscous silence sat between us for a full minute, like a barrier. He shifted his weight back and forth. My eyes didn’t leave The Villain’s hands that were buried in his jean’s pockets. His hand was balled around something about the same size as a cell phone. It was probably a folding-knife. Maybe the extension cord and the batteries were a distraction, because it would be far easier to snap open a knife and slash my quivering throat than kidnap me from a populated big-box store and then tie me up to torture and kill me. I was about to tell him to get the fuck lost when the muscles in his arms tensed. I picked up the scissors and threw them. I had meant to sling them like a tomahawk. But in reality, it ended up being a weak underhand toss. I didn’t have the heart to stab him because the simple thought of the driving scissors into a squishy eyeball or puncturing the carotid artery and seeing blood jet everywhere made me woozy. My plan to find cover and weave down aisles towards the back door was short-lived. I turned and sprinted straight out the front door without looking back. I practically asked to be shot. And I screamed bloody murder.
    Leaving the parking lot, my car smelled like burning rubber leaving. My tires squealed around every corner on the way home.
    When I got home, I slammed the apartment door and locked myself in. I retrieved the largest knife I had and stalked from room to room, checking each window’s lock. I checked every square inch of that apartment for an intruder and found nothing. I slid the couch in front of the door and wedged a chair under the sliding glass door’s handle. Monster probably watched all this and wondered what kind of maniac had kidnapped him. I went over to the cage and played with him for a while, then went to bed. I carried the cage into my bedroom and pushed the bed against the door. Every light in the apartment remained on all night. And eventually, I calmed enough to fall asleep.
    The next day when I didn’t show up for work. Taylor texted me at 4:05 pm. Maria had provided my phone number. Taylor was, and still is, the nicest person I’d ever met, asking what had happened and checking to see if I was okay. I made up some story about the customer insulting the way I pronounced “gwocewies.” I said I couldn’t take it anymore and left. Taylor sent a comforting text and asked if I wanted soup. I replied yes immediately. Taylor showed up an hour later with a can of Campbell’s tomato soup and a movie. That awkward hang out led to dinner a week later, then flowers, then kisses, then sleepovers, then engagement, then a wedding, then adopting two beautiful babies. Strange beginnings forge the strongest loves.
    But no one believed the full story, the true story. Even Taylor didn’t. But it didn’t matter because I knew the truth. A hamster wheel hypnotized me and I spent the entire day fearing for my life, that was the happy part. The sad part was that Campus View found out about my hamster, who I eventually named Hulk Hogan, a couple weeks later and fined me $500. The Hamstermania Man lived at my parent’s house for two days before getting eaten by the family cat.

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