passion...schmassion

day 11086: why am I telling you this?

In university, I had a dust-coloured hamster named Harley that I bought from Petsmart and named after the bike that roared past us on the way back to my shitty basement apartment. I probably should have named him Ralph, but Harley was the first thing that popped into my head, so Harley he became, and Harley he remained.

Harley and I were alike in very many ways. We slept like logs during the day, and both liked cheese and cheese flavoured snacks. We hated when people poked us and tormented us (sorry Ro!) and we both woke up extremely grumpy.

We bonded at night; he running in his little wheel as fast as his scrawny little legs could carry him, me “studying” late into the night and watched fuzzy football on my 20 year old rabbit-eared television. Sometimes I’d put him into his hamsterball, and he’d run around leaving a trail of hamster poo behind him. He liked his freedom and escaped as often as possible, once crawling into bed with me and scaring the crap right out of me.

Fun times.

Occasionally, I’d let Harley run around on my desk while I did my studio projects (brilliant plan to avoid exams by taking art studio 101 turned out extremely time consuming and not so brilliant). He’d run around my desk sniffing at my ink, and nibbling on whatever crumbles I had on my desk. And then he’d poop.

[Aside: I don’t know if you’ve seen hamsters poo. Very interesting… very gross. Harley had a habit of reclining on his back, sticking his huge bum in the air, pooing a little poo-stub, and then using his MOUTH to grab the little poo-stub to pull out the rest of the poo, and then FLINGING it as hard as he could.]

One night before the deadline of a huge drawing assignment, I lost track of time. I was drawing and smudging and erasing as fast as I possible could, and quite simply forgot that Harley was roaming around my desk getting into his usual mischief. Deep in concentration, I put my B2 pencil into my mouth, chewing on it as I reached for another pencil.

Something eventually clicked in my mind…

Hm… something isn’t quite right? Why is there an old raisin stuck on my pencil? I wasn’t snacking on rais… OMG… IT’S HAMSTER POO!!!

Freak of a little rat (RIP) had fling his little thing onto my pencil where it had dried so that I could chew on it.

Happy Friday the 13th.