This is the headline from The Onion
we love best.

_                                              _ What does this say
_             _ about us?

At least our schadenfreude’s minimalist?

Neither of us ever had a hamster
for a pet.

_                   _ Or even knew one as a friend’s
_                   _ pet

_                               _or the teacher’s pet: a hamster for the masses
_                               _of a third grade class, for instance;

nor do we know anything of gerbils.

_                               _Not on their own account,
_                                             _ neither their relationship to hamsters.

But monster trucks—
these we’ve seen.

_                                             _ Monsters of all models, guzzlers

_                               _on the byways of our humble town,

rumbling above us at the stoplight
like a frisky two-story building,

_                                             _ charging forward at the change
_                               _on super-sized tires,

swinging, sometimes, from the bumper
a pair of balls.

The hamster’s monster truck has thrown him
for a loop.

_                               _We think it probably shook him up.

He took the last lap of the treadmill track too fast!

_             _ Fans in the bleachers standing
on their seats,

_                               _the sun a beer-haze through their shades.

We hope the hamster’s landed
on his feet.