of hamsters and men

Afternoon at the Chateau.

I'm showing the pet hamsters to Diarmuid, the neighbour's kid.

Hamsters.

Plural.

We have two hamsters at this moment because I bought one in Naas and forgot to tell another pet shop owner in Newbridge that the position of Resident Hamster At The Chateau was henceforth filled.

I didn't have the heart to refuse a home to the creature she went and procured for me.

I know she moved mountains.

Ireland is undergoing a hamster shortage at the moment which you would not believe.

So here we are.

Hamster Number One who is called Baby Ham is in the front room.

She is a happy hamster and everyone rejoices at her presence.

Hamster Number Two is in my bedroom in the west wing.

His name is Fur Ham because he is of a long haired breed.

He is also essentially a more surreptitious hamster than Baby Ham.

That is to say, no one else in the house has yet been informed of his existence.

"Diarmuid this hamster is a secret," I tell the neighbour's kid.

I prounounce Diarmuid's name "Jeer Mwidge," which is the traditional Gaelic pronunciation that his mother insists upon. She has insisted on this pronunciation at odd turns for several years in spite of my heartfelt and finely principled protestations to make her see reason, to wit that no matter what she does everyone in the present era and posterity will shortly be calling the kid "Dermo."

Dermo juggles Hamster Number Two meditatively.

"Why is he a secret?" quoth he.

"Ummm," sez me, "because he just is. Don't tell anyone about him. I want to break the news gently to the parents."

While the kid still juggles Fur Ham, I go to sit in my corner chair.

The chair tilts backward as I lower myself into it.

I am unaware that the chair is tilting.

My rate of descent increases.

The chair's slide also increases.

It is falling over.

I am falling down.

With a crash of splinters my back cracks through the chair's ornate wooden struts.

I lie in a heap.

Diarmuid stares.

He is not a bad kid.

A saint would find it difficult not to laugh.

Diarmuid is not a saint.

At least if he is a saint, he's going to be one of those saints whose sainthood God makes apparent only after many years.

"Are you okay?" he manages with a stifled chortle.

"What happened?" sez me.

"Wah, ha, ha, ha," replies Diarmuid.

The chortle is no longer stifled but comes forth in a gale of laughter.

Still laughing at the sheer high octane entertainment of existence he pops Fur Ham back in his cage and disappears up the hall.

The last thing I hear is him shouting out the front door at his brother who is playing football on the avenue.

"Hey Peter," he yells. "James has got a new hamster. Yeah. Another one. No really. He's got two of them. Oh and he just fell on his back when he tried to sit down and smashed a chair."