Oh God ... please don't let my roommate figure out what happened to his hamster. Not that it was my fault. But in case it is, somebody forgive me? Amen!

There I was, trying to play Dungeon Siege, and even in the other room I could hear it: SQUEE! EEK! EEK! EEK! EEK! EEK! Not the hamster himself, of course. No mammal could possibly emit such a drum-wrenching noise. No, it was the ancient metal hamster wheel that he ran on inside his tiny plastic cage. It was old. Needed oil or something. Squeaked. Oh, Lord, did it squeak.

I'd try to concentrate on the dungeon crawl. I'd try to hack. I'd try to slash. But once you noticed the noise, it was impossible to ignore. SQUEE! EEK! EEK! EEK! EEK! Not that I had any oil handy. Nor did my roommate care. The circular hamster insanity device continued its wretched spinning and noisemaking, unmitigated.

One night, when I was exploring the ice caverns, it was just too much. I stomped over to the kitchen and brought out a stick of butter. I buttered that sucker up like a Thanksgiving turkey. HAH! I figured it would squeak no more. And I was right. Sorta. Truth is, the hamster stopped running on the wheel when he discovered that the axle was covered in butter. Instead, he just licked it ... for hours. So my plan worked, in a roundabout way (no pun intended.)

I went back to my dungeon crawl and thought all was well. That was days ago. Then, this morning, I found the poor little guy, paws in the air ... dead! Was it me? Did he die of, I dunno, rust poisoning? Some sort of ... butter disease? Do I dare tell my roomie about the buttering? I just don't know.

But in case it was me, I'd better ask for forgiveness again. You don't want that kind of thing on your soul. Bad karma. Bad ... bad karma.