Why I Think Living Naturally is a Good Idea

Bear with me on this one.

Up until last spring, we hadn't had any pets in a number of years. I really couldn't afford them, didn't have time for them, and hate the things cats and dogs bring into a person's home. Fleas. Worms. Apparently ass glands that need squeezing or something. Oh my god. That is gross.

Of course, the kids have begged for a pet for a long time. I spent a lot of time feeling guilty for depriving them of oneness with the animal kingdom and spent many random mind blanks by entertaining myself with visions of Timmy and Lassie, Jack and Laura, Old Dan and Little Ann, Ribsey and Henry, Hagrid and Fang, Cerberus and Hades. You know, a kid and his dog. Whatever.DMan received a few dollah bills for his birthday and made up his mind that he wanted a pet.

One Tuesday after his birthday, we were roaming through a local thrift store  waiting  forTuba Girl to finish her $10-every-nine-weeks drama class when I came across a hamster cage in great condition. Tuba Girl had a hamster when she was much younger and I somehow find rodents easier to deal with than larger animals prone to fleas and shitting in your shoes. Besides, our home is small and I'm not willing to give it up to some aggravating ass dog. Hamsters have their own homes that fit right on a counter.

I totally hyped up the hamster deal until DMan thought it was the most awesome thing ever. It was so awesome, we went right to the pet store and bought two hamsters right that very moment. In retrospect, I should have researched the whole thing a bit because it turns out I somewhat assumed the owner would never let me walk out the door with a male/female pair.

But he did and I did. And within a couple of weeks, I had to buy another cage after a crash course in caring for 14 baby hamsters.

Now, if you haven't yet understood how my title works with my story, you haven't given me time to connect the dots.

I do honestly believe we should live more naturally than we do.We should pay more attention to our bodies, to what we're putting into our bodies, to our hearts and souls and the world around us. That sort of crunchy, hippy dippy shit that gets me called out in real life when I pull something philosophically relative to the idea out of my ass.

Back to my hamsters. I separated pimp daddy from the mother as soon as I realized I'd actually bought two fucking hamsters. In all honesty, I counted back from the minute she spit out those babies to the day that I bought the pair and I'm pretty sure that bitch was knocked up when I gave her sanctuary in my home. Or they were "premature." (Shyeah. Right. *wink, nudge*)

I followed the directions and  avoided cleaning the mother hamster's cage for the duration of the babies' confinement. (That was not pleasant.) Fed her well, making sure to cook a bit of egg whites everyday to keep her protien levels up. Just like a nursing human, protein and an overall healthy diet are important to a nursing hamster.

Hamsters who don't receive the necessary nutrients are prone to eating their babies to reabsorb those nutrients in an effort continue caring for the remaining babies. A mother hamster may also eat an unhealthy pup since its chances of survival are minimal. Hamster owners are told to never bother the baby nest because if the pups' scent changes, the mother may not recognize her own children, view them as interlopers and eat them.

Also, the bitch may just be batshit crazy and eat her babies for no particular reason at all.

I never quite knew whether my mother hamster was just taking care of natural business by eating sickly babies or if she was batshit crazy, but I'm pretty sure that has to be one of the two reasons since I thought I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing in terms of helping her be a good mother. She ate about 5 of the 14 pups.

I have a few stories about how I've ended up with this damned mini-zoo, but today's point isn't really about pets. It's about crazy ass people who think we should live as unevolved beings. Sure, animals give birth alone and they've done it from the time a baby animal of any kind thought it would be great to pop out of a vagina. However, animals also eat their own young or abandon them if they're not worth the time. Animals do not sit around thinking about how they should live, they just do it that way because that's the natural order of their life.  Humans were supposedly born with enough sense to know that at least one "professional" should stick around to put a pair of scissors underneath the bed and to catch the football when it comes popping out of the chute. It definitely cuts down on the infant mortality rate.

The first time some MegaCrunchy nutbag eats her sick baby to reabsorb it's protein instead of rushing it off to the hospital and then blaming every medical professional but herself for the death of her child, then we might have something to talk about.

And on one hand, if I look at it objectively, I think that's not a bad plan at all. Everyone is complaining about how we're overpopulated and it's straining the earth's food supplies among other things. Maybe we should just be eating the sick and the infirm instead of propping them up in a false social system of "concern." Hell. The Donnor party did it. Maybe it's like eating veal.*



*I must note that eating soylent green is not an original idea of my own. Also,  I have no idea if veal is good. I like to give my cow meat a running chance at life.