A ROBOTIC WHAT?

The trouble is, Zhu Zhu Pets are so popular that stores cannot keep them in stock. The critters are routinely sold out at the likes of Toys “R” Us, Wal-Mart and Target, though more will hit the shelves the day after Thanksgiving, when deal-seekers wake up early to shop for bargains. In the meantime, the hamsters are being sold at a premium on the Internet. “Beware of the price-gouging on Amazon and eBay, which we don’t condone,” said Natalie Hornsby, director of marketing for Cepia, the St. Louis company that created Zhu Zhu Pets.

The five different battery-operated hamsters — Chunk, PipSqueak, Mr. Squiggles, Num Nums and Patches — are mainly coveted by girls, according to toy industry professionals. This possibly makes sense; Jim Silver, editor in chief of TimetoPlayMag.com, pointed out that girls also own the majority of live hamsters.

On that point I beg to differ. My younger son, on a visit to his then best friend, came bounding down the stairs with something in his hand. At a quick glance it appeared small and white, like a tiny kitten or mouse. “This”, he announced “is Precious”. And in deed it was. A tiny creature with a pointy nose and whiskers sat calmly in his hand. It was his friend’s newest pet: a hamster! From that day on, my son simply HAD TO HAVE ONE TOO! Remembering the pair of gerbils from a previous life, I really wasn’t interested in another caged rodent. But this one was seemingly tame, and so cute. The final decision came when the little pet was put into MY hands. SOLD! And we began the quest to buy my son a hamster of his own.

As usual, with my younger son ONE turned into A PAIR, and a divided cage was set up so that they could “talk” to each other every night in his room. Feeling confident in his ability to care for them, my son went to the next level: BREEDING THEM. And so it happened that the female, “Rusty”, was allowed to share a cage with the male “Tawny”, and the inevitable happened. Over the next few weeks Rusty set about preparing a nest for the coming litter. Then at last my son came running upstairs with the news: “They’re Here”. I followed him downstairs to his bedroom to witness the miracle that rodents have been producing for all their earthly lives: more rodents. But these were cute! Around the mounds of shredded paper and pulled-out fur I could barely make out the tiny shapes of the new litter. But what WAS easy to discern was the outcry for FOOD, which Rusty supplied from her nipples in the form of hamster milk.

From that point on, contact with the father was prevented (because of some ugly rumors that the males killed their young) and attention focused on the growth of the brood. It seemed as if they grew bigger each day. Then they began to eat the same food as their mother. At that point it became essential to separate males from females lest another litter be unintentionally begun. So my son, ever the opportunist, decided to sell the babies to a pet store where they could become someone else’s new pets. Cash in hand, my son decided that it was time to breed Rusty again. But this time the results were disappointing, because bred so soon after her last litter, Rusty died.