Working from home with the Siberian hamsters

WORKING from home means a lot of time to stare distractedly out the window, wondering why you are here, what your purpose is, and whether your team will get out of the relegation zone before it’s too late.

What is the point of existence, and will Sam Taylor Wood make a decent go of Fifty Shades of Grey? What happens when we die, and when will someone invent a vegan cheese that doesn’t taste of compressed flip-flops.

It is during one such bout of chin-in-hand contemplation, eyes gazing unfocused in the direction of the garden shed, that my reverie is interrupted by something visually unexpected. What is that scurrying movement? That furry, pointy-nosed manoeuvre? What is this emerging nimbly from under the shed, sitting up and sniffing the air?

A Siberian hamster, no less. A grown-up, full-sized, mature-adult, pedigree Siberian hamster, just like Manuel’s in Fawlty Towers. Look, it’s having a little stroll. Perfectly at home. Hold on, what’s that? Another one?

Two Siberian hamsters, both in excellent health, nonchalantly taking the air next to the garden shed, so relaxed in the winter sun you almost expect them to produce a pouch of rolling tobacco. Perhaps brew a pot of tea. Right there by the shed, not ten feet from the back door. Not ten feet from your own feet.

Now, I have nothing against Siberian hamsters, or rats, as they are also called. But I do know that if they move into the house, they will chew all the wires and give us bubonic plague. All of which would be quite inconvenient. So, I Google ‘rats under shed’, and the search results all say ‘phone pest control’.

Like Ghostbusters, the rat-man arrives in a jumpsuit, carrying some equipment. He is cheerful, because he is just weeks from retirement, he says. He investigates the shed, to see the size of the extended family that may be making their home amongst the camping gear and bicycles. He is going to lay down poison.

Will it hurt them? I am, after all, committed to non-violence against all living creatures, even my own children.

“Nah”, says the rat man. It works by enticing them to eat some delicious rat biscuits laced with a substance that kills their white blood cells.

So, they just drift off into a peaceful sleep and never wake up. “Rat euthanasia”, he says, adding that he has been stockpiling the stuff for years, to save himself a trip to Dignitas, when the time comes.

I smile nervously, and offer him a cup of tea. “Milk, 37 sugars”, he deadpans. Except, I only have almond milk, instead of cow’s — in keeping with the non-violence — and agave syrup, instead of sugar, in keeping with middle-class food neuroses. He looks like he is going to say something, but he doesn’t. He just drinks it. “I’ll be back next week for the bodies,” he says, straightfaced. “May they rest in peace.”

I smell a rat, or is it a family of ‘Siberian hamsters’ soon to be painlessly euthanised?