I think my position on Hamster Hair should be clear by now.  This fashion statement slows them down and I will not have that!!  Not in my army.  The problem is that afterwards they look kind of scrawny and pathetic.  A bitchin' tan really helps.  They say that if you look better, you feel better, so it probably applies to Hamsters, too.  So, of course, I have added tanning to their training schedules.

Today I lectured the new troops for two hours on how to do maximum damage  with a toothpick (while I was glueing the toothpicks to the hamsters' paws, there was a slight mishap, and I had a hamster glued to my arm for about an hour... it stayed on even when I twirled my arm around in a circle real fast.. I finally just ripped it off... man, how that thing squealed in pain--almost drowned out mine) and then another hour on The Three Stooges School Of Martial Arts, mostly on Curly's break through moves (as you know, the CIA invented the whole idea that the Stooges should take their fighting method and make a film to train recruits in far off places; as many millions of laughs have shown, the Stooges of course did them one better, and hid their deadly games under the veil of slapstick comedy).  Curly's moves are mean, and some say below the belt, but dammit, these hamsters have a size deficiency to make up for!!

After the lectures, I ran them through some drills... or at least tried to.  I fear that once more I have a band of leaders so sure of their own minds that they do not often follow directions.  Hamsters are known as born war strategists, of course, and I don't want to beat that out of them... but they did have some strange attack ideas when I put them on the world map and told them to show me how they would take over the world.

M. seems to think that they are merely just, quote, "Running this way and that, all helter skelter."

What does she know of the hells of war?  I have read dozens of books on Vietnam and am haunted by flashbacks to page numbers that I am pretty sure are from those books...

Napoleon The Seventh (Ruby ate all but the original, I must sadly report) seems to be just the little Mussolini I need to do my bidding without thinking too much.  I took him and Alexander the Great The Seventh (yes, Ruby), and General Sniggly Poo The Sixth (you get the picture), down to the beach today.  I stayed under a sun umbrella as they tanned.  I was surprised by how many people were on the beach sucking cancer in through their skins.  I thought this human geography would be smarter than that, optimist that I am.

Just a few minutes after we were all set up, as I rubbed coconut lotion on Napoleon, the lifeguard came walking up.  A young college looking boy.   "What the hell are those?" He asked me.
"Shaved hamsters."
"Whoa.  Did they have disease, or something"
"No, I assure you, they are healthy.  In fact, they are at the top of their game." 
"Why did you shave them then?"
"Duh... aerodynamics."
"Well, anyways, no animals on the beach."

It doesn't take a keen mind like mine very long to spot an enemy agent, and when he said this, totally interrupting my training schedule, I knew he was acting under orders to sabotage my army at all costs.

 "Well, I will hate to break that news to my other three hundred hamsters.  They are going to be pissed.  I can't always control them."

"Look, buddy..."
"That's General Buddy, to you."
"Okay...  I have a phone here to call the cops, okay?"
"Cops, you say.  .  .  Don¢t you mean . . .  wombats?"
"What?"
"You heard me!  Dammit, man, when are you going to wise up to the marsupial threat!!" I gather up my umbrella and tan oil, put the troops in a shoe box and begin trudging across the sand, knowing that the enemy has upped the stakes in the game... and will stop at nothing to break up my training camp.  When I reach the steps, I turn around and see the lifeguard watching me with a puzzled look on his face. Taking in every damn bit of information he can about me.  I take one last stab at saving his soul. "They couldn't have paid you enough to make up for living in their vision of a world, which they will have if they win."

The Mighty Beat Them To Piss And Twitches Hamster Army now is entering a time of trials.  I expected this.  I will need to watch for spies everywhere.  Even people I know could be deep plants, people who have been working their way into my life for years... how did they know I would build a Hamster Army? 

Probably that damn Miss Cleo the psychic.  According to the commercials and that one sleazy looking woman singer, she is always right.  I knew she was making a mistake by advertising her powers.  And sure enough, where is she now?  Locked up in a CIA lab.  Sure as shit, the wombats have gained access to her through their sympathizers in the Company.