final small pet. We hadn't even liked him; Mickey the
             degu had been a horrid, mean little thing. He permanently scarred my hand.
             But I'm a lover, and he also permanently scarred my heart.
             Before we owned anything as advanced as the rat-sized South American
             rodent that was the degu, we owned simple hamsters. Where the birds had
             really belonged to my parents, the hamsters were the charge of us children.
             Our first hamster, Cocoa, marked my first personal encounter with death, as
             hers was the first that was really my fault.
             I was five years old, and I liked to let Cocoa run around on the
             couch. I was always so careful to guard her, but once Cocoa scampered over
             the edge. I did not think; I reacted. My hand shot forward, heroically
             plucking the rodent from her free-fall. I had saved her from the carpeted
             floor at the bottom of her one-foot fall. I opened my tiny fist and looked
             down at the recipient of my kindness, limp and breathing rapid, shallow
             breaths in a small puddle of yellow-green goo on my palm. Confused, I
             rushed Cocoa upstairs, announcing vaguely to my mother that something was
             wrong. My mother looked down with pity at the dying rodent and her five-
             year-old murderer, knowing a big talk about death was as imminent as death
             itself. I later overheard her tell my dad, "She squeezed the life right out
             of it!" From then on I thought that life was a yellow-green goo inside us
             The yellow-green goo inside Mickey must h
             ...