Plans for Nigel: Origins

Hello my dear friends, family, and internet strangers! Warmest of greetings from both myself and my dear friend Nigel, the most wonderful hamster ever to scurry the earth. Yes, we two mammal-buddies have all sorts of delightfully mediocre adventures between the two of us. We don't often get to hang out all that much, what with me feebly attempting to scrounge for a living all day and Nigel being primarily nocturnal, but it's still basically a party every day. I am often mocked by my friends by having a chubby rodent for a best friend, but for a while I lived by myself in a little house and Nigel was my only companion. I still remember the day I very first got him...

It was late spring, early summerish. I had been house-sitting for a neighbor while she was finding a new house across the country, and for the first part of my stay I was responsible for taking care of her two cats, Mir Mir and Nala. After a couple months, Mir Mir died of kitty cancer and Nala went to live elsewhere shortly after. I was all alone in this little house with no one to talk to.

One day when I was incredibly bored, I decided to go for a little walk. Being the naturally spontaneous (attention deficit) person that I am, this little walk pretty quickly led me to a nearby trailhead and onto a four hour hike. Now, the sign at the beginning of the trail said to allow yourself three hours or so to complete the hike. Certainly this time allotment had taken into account slower hikers, photography addicts, families with children, the elderly, and the infirm. A fit young adult could complete the hike in maybe half that. Unfortunately, the considerate sign-people had neglected to consider stupid people such as myself, whose expert navigational skills rival those of a deaf bat. It took me until I was quite thoroughly stranded on the side of a mountain hundreds of feet above a highway to realize that perhaps I had strayed from the original trail a bit.

Realizing that the trail had forked a while back and I had taken the path that led down, logic dictated that to get to the trail, I should head straight up the side of the mountain. Down wasn't exactly an option, since it was the sort of down that would happen very quickly and have somewhat messy results. Therefore, up it was. I found a fallen tree and started to climb upward toward the roots. By the time I reached the top, I was truly a sight to behold.

After a few more hours of stumbling blindly through the woods singing Irish drinking songs at the top of my lungs, I managed to stagger out of the wilderness and straight into the middle of a family outing. 

The startled mother informed me upon inquiry that it was about 15 more minutes to the trailhead. I thanked the gracious lady and started back into my rendition of "Whiskey in the Jar". Eventually, I got to the canyon and called my parents to come get me. On the way home, I pondered the consequences of my adventure, and eventually I came to the conclusion that to reward myself for surviving in the wilderness for hours, I needed a furry friend.

                                                  

Later, at the pet store, I was determined to buy myself a mouse, but when I walked past the hamster cage, the cutest hamster ever in the world caught my eye. He was so little and fluffy and precious and ginger and just so adorable I couldn't resist! The pet store lady woke him up and got him out of the cage for me to hold. there in her hands, the cutest little hamster opened his eyes and looked up at me. "Now," said the pet store lady, "Sometimes it freaks people out when hamsters have red eyes." I said, "Oh, it doesn't bother me tha--"

                                        

It was at that point I decided that the cutest hamster in the world ever wasn't really the hamster for me, so I settled on his scrappy little brother. Little did I know, that day was the day I bought one of the best and tiniest

friends I would ever have this entire year so far.