2006-06-11 
 

moth dreams

I've been having some rather odd dreams over the past few days. May be a side effect of the various medications I was given last week, but might also just be because I'm sleeping 10-12 hours a day in an attempt to thwart this cold.

Either way, it's a bit like watching a foreign television station while I sleep. Like something in Dutch or Swiss where, thanks to years of German and French, I can almost make out the meaning. But not quite.

Last night a cloud of friendly moths swirled around me while I walked through a quaint 1950s town full of smiling folks who seemed to think I was quite special due to the moths and gave me various compliments. Rather nice actually, but I woke up wondering if we had any forgotten hamster food hidden in the back of a cupboard somewhere.

See, I used to have hamsters. Well, I should say that I had a succession of hamsters. Sometime around my 13th birthday, Dude convinced Mom that it'd be cool to give me some. So I got two hamsters and the supporting tunnels, cages and water bottles that make them extra fun. They promptly died within a week or two...as pet store hamsters often do. So often in fact, that the store offered a free hamster for any hamster you brought back dead within a two week period. Pretty twisted in a way, but we took them up on it and Dude went back with Mom for a second set.

One of them ended up chewing a hole through its cardboard carrying case, and Dude had to chase it through the South Shore Plaza Sears to recapture it. Thus it was that Houdini and Fluff came into our home. Fluff soon died and was replaced with yet a third and then a forth hamster, but Houdini obviously had the right spirit and lived for a good long time. (Well, in pet store hamster terms - he died sometime early the next year.)

So I had an empty cage and various tunnels and hamster balls with no hamsters to enjoy them. Until a close friend of the family, who had hamsters in her college dorm room, was told that they'd have to go or she'd be kicked out. We had hamsters again. She had named them Shithead 1 and Shithead 2 due to their pentioned for late night excercising. Since I fully expected them to die within a few months, I didn't really bother renaming them though I did shorten it to SH1 and SH2 when refering to them in gentler company.

The Shitheads lasted for more than three years each, quite some time for a hamster. Especially ones purchased in a pet shop. I found out later that they'd been given various non-hamster approved substances during their time in the dorm (mainly beer and pot during various weekend parties) My friend hadn't approved, but sometimes those sorts of decisions get made before one has a chance to stop them. Anyway. I'm convinced that it helped toughen them up and gave them the long lives they enjoyed.

Over the years, I began to see the wisdom in their monikers. Mostly due to the frustration of having to clean up after pets who only wanted to nip at my fingers when removed from the cage. Then we moved across town and it was too much of a jolt for them. The move happened in September and by winter they had both gone to the great Habitrail in the sky.

My relief at no longer having to clean cages aside, I did feel quite sad when they passed over and held appropriately earth friendly ceremonies for each. I washed out the cages and tunnels one last time and everything went up into the attic.

Everything except one forgotten box of hamster feed.

The following spring, we began noticing a couple of moths fluttering about. Always two of them at the same time. I've always had a soft spot for moths and butterflies, and was loath to kill them, but there's a place for everything and fluttering by my nice sweaters gave me good reason to squish them. Thing is, within a day or two, they'd come back. I began to believe that there really was only two moths: John and Emily. I'd squish them on Monday and by Tuesday they'd be back, reincarnated as good as new...and with little need for new names. This circle of squish and rebirth went on for several months, but stopped by fall and I didn't think much about it.

Until the following spring, when John and Emily came back and brought Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice along with them. A thorough search was conducted and the forgotten box was found. When opened, a small cloud of moths swirled out.

Which, to bring this tale full circle, is, I believe, where the image of moths dancing around my head came from. Out of my past and into my subconscious wanderings. The point of this tale, if there really is one, is either that we all have so much stuff that we don't even know exactly what we have. Or....use tupperware when storing hamster food.

This tale has been brought to you by the letter C for CODEINE. Good for controlling coughing AND for rambling remembrances.

Labels: dose of mikey, memory lane

* posted by me at 4:22 PM

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