Jingles the Indestructible Hamster

My Guinea Pig post from the other day got me to thinking about a set of pets from my childhood.

I forget how old I was at the time but one year, while my brothers and I were small (I estimate that I was maybe 8 years old), we received hamsters for Christmas. Given the holiday, we chose Yuletide-themed names - Jingles, Jangles, and Noel. Jangles was my hamster. At the end of the first evening, I said "good night" went to bed and by the time I woke up the next morning my hamster had died.

Being a young child I was distraught. My parents went back to the store and purchased a replacement hamster. I do not remember the name I gave to Hamster Number Two but it only lasted about a week before passing on to the Great Wheel in the Sky.

Hamster #3's name has also been lost to the ravages of time ("Charcoal" sounds like it could be right) but it survived a whole year before dying. I had very limited contact with the animals and I promise that I did nothing that could have contributed to their demise.

I only told you all of that to set the stage for my actual story.

One of my brothers was Jingles' owner. You might say that he was a bit "rougher" with his hamster than I was with mine. I vividly remember him putting Jingles in her ball and then Shaking It Up like he was about to roll Yahtzee (and the sound of her tiny body bouncing around inside the ball) and then Bowling the Ball Across the Kitchen. Centrifugal force would plaster the hamster in place until the hard plastic sphere collided with a wall, chair, or the table. The sudden stop would then launch Jingles through the air to smack against the opposite side of her ball.

Jingles lived to be almost five.