The Hamster Surrendered

Sometimes it is really important to know when you are defeated. Sometimes it is a good idea to quit while you are still alive.

We moved to Utah in 1999, days after I completed my Master's degree in San Jose. We had been planning it for a while. After spending the first few years of our marriage in California, and having a couple kids while I gave teaching high school the old college try, we decided that Utah might be a better place to live. California at the time seemed too crowded, too expensive, and we weren't sure what our future there might look like. By way of contrast, my older sister had been living in Salt Lake City the last several years and had done pretty well, even as a single parent. She had been able to buy a house and everything. But now she was back in California to be closer to my parents. Utah seemed like the land of opportunity. We also knew it to be a nice community that was friendly to children. We already seemed a little strange in California for having two kids so close together, and only being in our early twenties. Utah was full of big, young families. We knew we wanted to have more kids, so Salt Lake City seemed like the place to be. We moved into the house my sister had not yet sold.

If you have never been there, you should know that as far as cities go Salt Lake City is a very nice one. It is beautiful. Set against a backdrop of ten-thousand foot rocky peaks, it is one of the cleanest and most easy-to-navigate cities in the country. It is a very nice place to visit during any season.

But you might not want to live there.

The only reason I say this is that Salt Lake City is the home-base of a culture that can be pretty difficult to interact with for any extended period of time. I am not talking about religion. If you only remember one thing you read in this essay, you should remember this. Never confuse Utah Mormon culture with any kind of religion. Utah culture and Mormon doctrine are completely separate. It turns out that Utah is actually one of the United States of America. It is unfortunate however, that the Mormons who live in Utah don't know that they are not really Mormon anymore. This is mostly because members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormons) who were born and raised in Utah have likely never read the Book of Mormon, nor studied their religion in any meaningful way. The good people of Utah, a majority of who claim to be Mormon, have been "phoning it in," religiously speaking, for the last hundred years or so. They don't really work at it. They don't think they need to.

Utah Mormons have created a culture that is very prescribed. They have created a culture that defines where they should live, what they eat and drink, and what movies or TV shows they can and can not watch. Their culture clearly defines the kinds of people they can and can not be friends with, what they should wear and drive, and who they should vote for in each election. They have created a culture that dictates everything they may ever wonder about, leaving them free to spend all their time thinking about nothing at all. If they do ever find themselves in doubt, all they need to do is pick up the newspaper, or tune in to any other local media source, and they will be told what they need to know. It is beautiful. Life is so simple for Utah Mormons.

The problem is that their religion doesn't tell them any of these things. Seriously. Go get yourself a copy of the Book of Mormon. Read it cover to cover. Then come back and tell me if anywhere in that book it says that you shouldn't have a cup of fucking coffee. It isn't in there. And therein lays the problem. Six or seven generations into the original "settlin" of the Great Salt Lake Valley by Mormon pioneers from the Midwest, these people are on autopilot. Because they all share the same culture, and they all share the same religion, and their parents all shared this same culture and this same religion, they have completely confused the culture with the religion. It is purely inductive reasoning, and it is human nature. If you are born and raised a Mormon in Utah, as a matter of conditioning, it is nearly impossible for you to see the difference between your culture and your religion. They can't help it. It would happen to the rest of us if not for that crazy first amendment. This kids, is the reason our constitution wants us all to have different faiths. We need something to fight about, to keep it real.
But I digress.

I can poke fun at them because I am one of them. I was born into this Utah-Mormon, suburban, whitebread, maelstrom. But then I was raised in California where we learned that culture and religion were two different things. At a Utah high school, being Mormon means fitting in. At a California high school, being Mormon most certainly does not mean "fitting in."

I knew growing up that Utah Mormons were different from other Mormons. We spent time with the extended family in Utah each year, and I knew things were different for my cousins than they were for me. My cousins had the same friends in the neighborhood, at school, and at church. They talked about church business and goings-on with their friends at school, and around the neighborhood. Church was integrated into everything they did. I had different sets of friends at school and at church. And even though we often went to the same schools, those of us who met up at church on Sundays pretended not to know each other the rest of the week. There was a stigma connected to being a Mormon kid in California, along with a lot of stupid questions (How many wives does your dad have?). We preferred to avoid discussing the matter. In fact we all spent at least a little time trying to hide the fact that we were Mormon. This was contradictory to what we had been taught to do. Every Mormon child at that time had drilled in to them the concept that "every member was a missionary." We were supposed to be proud of who we were, talk about it as often as we could, and try to generate in other people an interest in joining the fold. Mormons recruit aggressively. I remember sitting through a history lesson in fifth grade about western expansion. When the teacher got to the part about the Mormons moving west and "settling" (never mind the people who already lived there) Utah, Las Vegas, and several places in California he asked if anyone in the class was Mormon. There were three of us. None of us raised our hands. Then he went on to tell us what was wrong with the Mormons. It was just a different environment.

So I figured that as an adult, moving to Utah would be a pretty good idea. After all, these were my people. Never-mind that I had stopped going to church when I was fifteen. I was pretty sure that I understood this culture. After-all, I was a member of the fifth generation of my family to be born in Utah. There are a lot of people in Salt Lake City who share my surname, and with our polygamous past, I am related to most of them. Utah is the motherland.

As it turned out, we didn't fit in so well in Utah. Don't get me wrong. We did at first. But then something strange happened.

The first year or so we lived in Utah everything was fine. My extended family was everywhere. I have 32 first cousins with all associated aunts, uncles, etc. They all seemed glad to have one of their long-lost sons back with a new wife and a couple new little ones. Our neighbors were some of the friendliest people you would ever want to meet. I couldn't complain about any of them. But still, something seemed strange.

Maybe it was the old man who lived across the street who each Sunday after church came home with two hookers. Maybe it was the number of phone calls that came from the local elder's quorum, inviting me out to church each week. Maybe it was the missionaries who knocked on our door so frequently. The missionaries in Utah don't go up and down the street knocking on every door the way they do other places. That would only result in twenty free meals per day and fat missionaries. Everyone likes people who already see things their way. In Utah they work by appointment. They seek specific targets. They are like smart bombs. They only knocked on our door, and often.

And the old man with the hookers is really extraneous to this discussion. He was just funny.

I have come to refer to the strangeness we began to feel after our first year in Utah as "creeping unwelcome." Allow me to explain what I mean. It is the sense that people are "too" friendly. It is the feeling that people are only pretending to like you. It is the notion that no regular person could really be as interested in the lives of strangers as these people were with us. Eventually people began to ignore us. Eventually the phone calls stopped. Eventually we didn't even get a wave from the front yard.

And then it occurred to me that every member is a missionary. They were being nice to us because they hoped to convert us. We had in fact, been teasing them. We made it look like we would be an easy win. We were a young couple with a bunch of small kids. We drove a mini-van. I wore a white shirt and tie to work most days. And after all, I had been born there, and used to be Mormon. We led them on, and now they were feeling a little betrayed. It was taking too long. They were getting pissed.

One of the joys of being a parent of small children is keeping small pets for small children. When we lived in Utah, we had hamsters. They are funny little creatures. Their usefulness as pets can be debated. Their very existence needs to be questioned. We had one "wild" hamster of questionable breeding, and one very calm and friendly hamster of preferred stock. They lived separately, because hamsters like to kill each other when you put them together. They were both boys.

The nice hamster was played with constantly. It was the kind of hamster they called "black bear." Like most hamsters it was Russian in origin, with short, fine, black hair, and it looked like a very small black bear. The mean hamster was part goat or something. It had long shaggy white and orange hair. When handled, which wasn't often, it would alternately bite the shit out of you, or sit calmly and stare you down with beady little red eyes in an attempt to dominate you mentally. And it usually worked. There were mysterious nights I cannot recall on which I think I may have done that hamster's bidding.

The nice hamster was smart enough to never leave its home uninvited. It recognized a good thing, and let me tell you, as far as captive lifestyles go, a hamster's set-up isn't bad. The mean hamster was bent on extradition. He was a political prisoner as far as he was concerned. And he would not rest until the streets flowed red with the blood of the infidels. One day the mean one escaped. We were alternately relieved, because now we were not obligated to attempt to handle him, and scared shitless, because he was roaming free somewhere inside our home.

This was about the same time we began making an effort to send clear signals to our neighbors about our religious orientation. They weren't handling the mixed signals very well, and frankly, we didn't think we were being very fair by leading them on. We didn't fly a freak flag on the lawn or anything. We were more subtle. We wanted to let them know what we were about without throwing it in their faces, if you know what I mean. I started doing all my yard work on Sunday mornings, right around the time they were all driving to church. This ensured that they all saw me clearly disrespecting the Sabbath. I barbecued in the front yard on Saturday afternoons, always with a cold beer in hand. I chased off Boy Scouts every time I saw them creeping around. And we put obscene bumper stickers on the mini-van. My favorite read "I Love Mormon Pussy." You know, we wanted to send clear signals while staying under the radar.

I like to think it worked.

The hamster was missing for about three weeks when we spotted it bolting across the carpet in the basement one morning. It disappeared into the storage room. We were shocked that it was still alive. We had snakes all around our place that summer. I guess it realized that the basement was a safe little harbor. Still, it had to be feeling the stress. We had snakes drop into the window wells from time to time. A suburban Utah basement is not an easy place for a hamster to live on its own, even a mean one. We figured the kids dropped enough crumbs on the floor that it could eat pretty well indefinitely. What is it about little kids and crumbs?

Acting on a tip from the hot shot manning the register at the local pet shop, the old lady set up a trap for it with a stack of books and a bathroom wastebasket. I guess she didn't like the old spring-loaded trap I picked up from the hardware store. She caught him too. But that little bastard could not be held. He was gone in a day, and it was another six weeks before we saw him again.

The circumstances under which I next encountered that hamster were strange enough that, had I not witnessed it with my own two eyes, I would never believe it. And while I will swear to you that it is one hundred percent true and accurate just as I tell it here, I still don't expect you to believe this next part of the story.

The hamster surrendered. One morning I was making the rounds to check the status of toilet paper in each of the bathrooms. I walked into the basement bathroom, which was located right next to the storage room. I flipped on the light, replaced the roll on the holder, and turned around to leave when I noticed a small white and orange goat in my path. It was just standing there, on two feet, with its little front paws held up, staring at me. But this stare was in no way maniacal. This stare was desperate. I saw fear, pain, and exhaustion in those little red eyes. This was a cry for help. I simply reached down, and picked him up. He made no attempt to run. He did not scratch me or bite me. As soon as I held him, he looked generally relieved.

I carried him upstairs and placed him in the cage the kids had insisted remain prepared in case of his return. He spent the rest of his life there. He never bit, scratched, or practiced mind-control on anyone again. He was a model pet from then on. He knew when it was time to give up.

Later that week I was washing the car in the driveway. Two of the kids were out playing while I worked. I watched one of the neighbor kids walk by on his way to another neighbor's house. I knew from the time everyone was friendly to us that he was five years old. My daughter, who was about his same age, walked right up to him and said hello. She asked if he wanted to play with her.

Have you ever seen one little kid just plain ignore another little kid? I never had until that day. I didn't even think it was possible. This tiny little boy looked straight through her, dead-faced, and kept walking. She eventually fell away feeling confused and a little hurt. It occurred to me that no little kid learns to do that on his own. A parent has to really work hard to teach a five-year-old to ignore another five-year-old, particularly when that child's parents were no where to be seen. What must that kid have been told about us?

I figured the hamster had it right. I knew it was time to go. Within two months I accepted a new job in Texas, and we were on our way.

Utah is a really nice place to visit.