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My sons and I were shopping in one of the large Texas department stores when we decided to take a shortcut through the small pet department.

"Mom, look! Aren't they adorable?"

My youngest was pointing to a cage of long-haired Angora hamsters.

The ever-present store clerk scooped up what looked like a white golf-ball-sized creature covered with fluffy 1/2 - 3/4 inch long hair. Add bright eyes and perky little ears to this tiny ball of fluff, and you have a heart-captivating bundle of joy. I don't know what variety these hamsters were, but they were unlike any I had ever seen.

The clerk gently placed one fluffy ball into the outstretched hands of each son with instructions on how to hold the hamster. I didn't know grade school boys could squeal, but they both did with supreme delight.

"Oh, Mom. Can we each have one?"

"Please, Mom, pretty please—I’ll even feed and clean up behind them."

 I should know better than to walk through the pet section. I'm too soft-hearted.

To be truthful, I was as captivated by these adorable little furballs as my sons. I never considered hamsters as a possible pet, but these were different. There is so much cuteness in tiny furballs that move.

"Yes, they are adorable," I murmured, thinking, What could it hurt? Besides, how could I say no to such earnest pleading? We had survived an assortment of ducks, dogs, and lizards—and now—we’re without a pet.

The sales clerk helped us select two female hamsters, and we headed home with our two female balls of fur—one white and the other cream-colored. Plus, we acquired an assortment of toys and exercise tunnels that would attach to the hamsters' new three-story apartment house. Since this was in the 1970s before the internet, we didn't know much more than the store clerk told us about raising hamsters.

A couple of days later, the boys were so captivated by their new pets, they pooled their money and rode their bikes back to the store. Upon hearing them announce they had bought two more hamsters with their own money, I was alarmed.

"Did you make sure both are females like the first two?"

"Yes, Mom. We knew that's what you'd expect us to do. We had a different sales clerk, but she assured us the new ones are the same sex."

I hesitated and thought about pointing out their flawed logic, but I didn't.  Clearly—the second pair being the same sex didn't mean we had four females. But, I hoped for the best.

Each son quickly discovered he couldn't sleep with hamsters in his room. Hamsters are nocturnal animals who love to run and play at night. They would get their exercise wheel whirling fast at night, and their playful squeaks would wake up the boys. So all the hamsters and equipment moved into our study, just around the corner from our bedroom.  Problem solved. I figured I could close the door if the noise bothered my husband or me.

Soon it was evident the addition of the new hamsters wasn't going well with our first two. They were fighting. So we placed the newer ones in their own cage. Finally, the original females settled down in contentment.

After school, the boys would go straight to the hamster cages to do homework and play with their four hamsters. Sometimes they would have one inside a transparent plastic ball that allowed the hamster to run around the house inside the ball by making it roll in the direction the hamster wanted to go. One got pretty good at scampering around our house inside the ball. That particular one preferred the tile kitchen floor because it was easier to roll on the tile. She would head straight for the kitchen. However, the kitchen soon became off-limits because I couldn't cook dinner and always watch out for the rolling hamster ball.

All was going well until one morning, as I fixed breakfast before school, I was jarred by, "Mom, they have babies!"

One mother hamster had about a dozen little thimble-sized pups that were naked and blind. The mama would flatten herself out like a furry pancake and continually scoop her pups underneath her.

About a day later, "Mom, come look! More babies!"

Now we had about two dozen naked, blind squirming pups. However, the second mother seemed to go a bit crazy. She managed to pop a section of the plastic cage open and escaped one night into our study. Unfortunately, that room was lined with bookcases and several hundred books, so we could not locate the missing mom. Trying to be helpful, I scooted all the babies under the one faithful little mom. She valiantly tried to flatten herself to cover the nearly two dozen squirming pups for the two days we continued trying to coax the wayward mom from behind the bookcases.

Once we caught the runaway mom and returned her to her babies, I separated the two groups of pups because of a size difference. Then, I returned to fixing dinner and left the boys to watch. We had seen the first mom pick up the pups in her mouth when she decided to move all of them to a new location, so when the second mom decided to move her brood to another floor of their apartment, it seemed natural that she picked them up in her mouth. But soon, young male voices were shouting, "Euweeh! How awful!" "Mom, she's eating her babies!"

"Don't worry; she's just moving them. Isn't she?"

"No, Mom—she’s eating them! There are body parts."

By now, my husband and I were both in the room confirming their verdict. The unanimous decision was to remove the wayward mom to another cage and let the faithful mom continue trying to raise the remaining dozen and a half pups. She did a fantastic job of scurrying around, trying to keep her menagerie of blind pups corralled underneath or at least near her.

The pups were adorable but grew rapidly; they were no longer marble-sized.  Soon, we were struggling with keeping them from breaking out of their cages. They quickly discovered teamwork enabled them to pop open the round plastic run-tunnels and gain freedom. It happened on more than one occasion, and they would even do it with us sitting right there watching them do it. We would duct tape each new spot, but they kept finding another place to break out.

You've never seen two adults come out of deep sleep faster than the night Monty and I felt tiny feet scampering across our sleeping bodies in our bed. We both raised up as one trying to grab whatever hamster was in our bed. Several nights earlier, we had been on the floor with flashlights attempting to find the new escapees that had gone under our bed. For some reason, they would usually come directly to our bedroom once they got out. Both sons found this very humorous. But it brought about a decision from the adults in the household. “You boys need to find new homes for all these babies. Free hamsters for anyone interested.”

Unfortunately, we had to go out of town the following weekend. We taped up every place on all the cages where we thought a hamster could make a break for freedom. We left town hoping our duct tape would work.

We returned to find several hamsters had broken loose. We searched diligently to find all the escapees. Finally, we found the last two. They had eaten through the carpet to tunnel under the door into a special closet holding all my floor-length formals and fancy dresses. To my horror, they had shredded one side of every floor-length gown in the entire closet.  I couldn't raise the hem and cover the problem because they didn't damage just a little place near the bottom. No, they had shredded each dress to about my knee height because this pair was making a nest.

“That’s the last straw! Do you know how costly this is going to be? It’s not just the carpet, but a closet full of evening dresses mutilated. All hamsters have to go," I roared. “They can go anywhere—just gotta be out of my sight."

The boys and Monty immediately began finding homes. A few friends took one, and the pet store was the recipient of many adorable little furballs that had worn out their welcome at our house.

Sigh—if only I had checked to make sure ALL were females. But unfortunately, even small actions, or lack of them, can have unexpected consequences. It’s much like the Butterfly Effect in Chaos Theory.