On Hamster Bands

I opened up my shades, my phone rang, and my friend’s familiar faded blue van pulled up to my driveway. I heard her music playing over the speakers as I buckled myself in. I haven’t seen her in a hot minute, and we were set to get boba at a local mall (a weakness of mine). I ordered sweet potato milk tea, which is a first for me, and a joy in and of itself. Afterward, we trekked towards a record store that also happens to sell antique books (another weakness of mine) and my friend and I quickly made our way towards those antique books.  We went our separate ways in the store soon after that. I was a few rows in the poetry section when I noticed a faint panting coming from behind me. I turned around, and there standing right behind me was a black lab, going gray with age, his tag quite literally inviting me to pet him. So I did. He then toddled off to another part of the store, I found my books, gathered my friend as well, and went to check out. I asked the cashier whose dog it was, to which she proudly replied that it was hers, and he was an old man (13). We quickly started a conversation about pets, as I have two of my own, and she had several dogs, and several hamsters. Now it’s important to note that she called them her “hamster band”. Of course I noticed that myself and asked her what made her refer to them that way. She can hear everything they do, she told me (not a direct quote). They nibble on straw, start little fights, and play in their cage, and she can hear all of it. I’ve never had hamsters, but it never occurred to me that they socialized so much and, according to the cashier, enjoyed making noise. She deliberately noted these hamsters’ noise, and called them a band because of it. It’s almost as if, just maybe, there is joy in the noises of life, if we only took the time to truly listen.