The "What About Bob" Story

Bob

It was an ordinary day.  Eavesdropping on a phone conversation that my wife was having with my granddaughter Camille.  Camille is eight years old and in third grade.  Her sister, Courtney, has a hamster.  Her second one.  I knew that my grandkids would love pets, since their parents had pets when they were growing up in the 70s and 80s.  My three kids had guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, a ferret and a chinchilla.  When my wife was growing up she had just a few pets, but on the rather large size.  She had a horse ... oh yeah, she also had Buddy.  He was her long-haired chihuahua that didn't like me after I showed up one day and he had to play second fiddle!  For me, well I had pets when I was growing up in the 40s and 50s.  I had white mice, pigeons, white rats, fish, a couple of dogs and ...... get this, a couple of hundred guinea pigs.  I wrote a few times about my guinea pigs, but I just wanted to add this to show you that the members of LDubs family love pets.  My grandson has dogs, cats and goldfish in his home while my two granddaughters have, or had at one time or another, goldfish, cats, a dog, and a couple of hamsters.  Courtney's hamster, which she got a few months ago died about a week ago.  Not sure why but it may have been from fright, since her cat, Ruby, can stare you to death!  And she loved sitting next to the hamster's cage and staring!  As I was listening to my wife's conversation with Camille I kind of got the idea that their household had a new hamster already.  Courtney's old hamster's name was Coco and Camille was telling Carol that her dad had helped Courtney put Coco in a small box and wrap duct-tape around the box.  They were putting the box in the garage until the ground thaws and they can bury it with the other pets under their rear deck.  Carol was wiping a few tears away when she told Camille that Amah and Tampah (Carol and me) used to help her Camille's mom, our daughter, put her pets who had died in the winter in a metal film canister with tissues all around it and put it in the garage until the snow had all melted.  Boy do I remember those days.  Some years we might of had half a dozen film canisters in the garage by the first thaw.  By the time our kids were in high school it was almost impossible to plant flowers in our flower beds with out hitting something metal with the shovel.  Oh, the good old days.  I really miss them!!  Then Camille told Carol about the new hamster that Courtney just got.  Seems that Camille and Courtney's mommie's friend had a hamster and didn't want it anymore.  She asked my daughter if she would please take it.  Camille said that she didn't want it because it was already "half dead" which meant if was a year or two old and couldn't handle the stare of the cat.  Camille did like the fact that her friend, the owner of the hamster in question, could do one-handed cartwheels while holding the hamster in her other hand.  Well, Camille learned that it was now a "rescue" hamster and Courtney was going to have to like it.  It's name was Bob. Pretty cool name for a "half dead" hamster.  Hope Ruby the cat likes him.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of ordinary guy.   

Pet burial vault