It’s two in the morning now.  My whole household is still awake.  Except that damn hamster who must have tired himself out running on his wheel all damn day.  (Hello, welcome to jenallday.com which is apparently now a hamster blog.)  It is crazy town over here.  We sleep all day and then at 1 a.m. it’s time to get down to business.

Except for me.  My two projects scheduled for today lay scattered all over my house.   My house that only a week ago was spotlessly clean.  My house that in a week will need to be spotlessly clean.  I can’t remember what I’ve been doing for the last four hours.  I’ve been in a complete daze.  I lost the battle today.  Everything that is not in my nature to ignore has slapped me in the face.  And then there were the surprises that I shouldn’t care about but I do.  Because I’m STUPID.

I can’t talk to my best friend who calms me down because of choices we’re both making.  The other spends all our conversations begging me to stop taking my medication.  He wins tonight, because I’m skipping the nightly dose.  I’ve lost the battle with today, what’s the point of trying to keep it together?  I already have a squinty eye from the stroke that is threatening to break lose and my stress rash has taken up residence all over my neck again.

For today, I give up.

Text Sent:  I’m the hobo in the south corner of the restaurant filling up on chips.

Hysterical Call Received:  You can’t tell me directions.  I DON’T KNOW DIRECTIONS!

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Swamp Ass is still feverishly in love with his wheel.  I’ve learned my lesson, never take his wheel away because the next week will be spent wondering what the hell that noise is.

My Mom this morning:  “I woke up at 2 a.m. wondering who the hell was sharpening pencils?”

The back story:  A few weeks ago I was sorta ambushed into adopting a drawf hamster.  In the same week that I adopted two more beta fish.  Pictures and stories on their names were to be posted but then Ol’ Dirty Bastard threw himself out of his fish tank to his own death on the carpet below.  That ended the bliss that was my newly doubled pet total.  (And caused my neighbors much confusion I’m sure when all I could be heard yelling was “Ol’ Dirty Bastard committed suicide!!  Holy crap.  Suicide!”)

So, I’ve got this hamster.  And he’s kind of a jerk.  I’ve never had a rodent as a pet before.  (Note:  My brother had a hamster when we were little and our parents forced us to watch it give birth.  SCARRED FOR LIFE.  Learning experience my ass.)  So me and this hamster are in our getting to know you phase.  So far he knows that I’m apparently only capable of giving completely inappropriate names to pets, and I know that Swamp Ass sleeps all day and runs on that damn wheel as soon as it’s lights out. 

So when my bed was occupied with Shannon this weekend after my birthday get together and Swamp decided to pull his favorite party trick and scare the crap out of her by running on his wheel at 2 a.m. I took his wheel away.  GASP!  Yes, I am a mean pet mother. 

And then I didn’t put his wheel back on Sunday.  Because I was sleepy.  And then also Monday, because I was sleepy.  And then Tuesday rolls around and I walk into the bedroom to find Swamp Ass dangling from his front paws from the roof of his cage trying to get at his beloved wheel.  Well then I kind of felt like an asshole.  So I attempted to get his wheel back in the cage but all that little menace wanted to do was escape from the cage.  I just don’t do rodents running wild in my house so I threw him back in, closed the door and put the wheel back on top of the cage.

This morning I find him sitting on his ledge looking as pissed as a hamster can muster.  The wheel?  No where to be found.  How a hamster knocked a large chunk of plastic off the roof of his cage and halfway under my bed four feet away I’ll never know, but I figured it was time to give him the wheel back.  He’s been running on that damn thing ever since.

Jen:  “Mom, that hamster hasn’t shut the fuck up since I gave him that wheel back.”

Mom:  “He probably was missing his exercise.  OH!  Maybe I should get a wheel!”

Jen:  “…  …  … Um, we had a wheel, it was called a treadmill.  We sold it because we never used it.”

Mom:  “Oh, that’s right.  Never mind.”