I recently had a neighbor who had to have their 1-year old Siberian
hamster, Basil, put down due to brain failure. The hamster was
completely healthy until a few weeks ago, so they had a necropsy done
to see what the cause was. The brain levels were unbelievable, as if
the animal had watched some kind of daytime talk show. Basil is kept
inside, and when he's outside, Manuel's with him, so the idea of him
getting into something unknown was hard to believe. My neighbor
started going through all the items in the house.
When he got to the AOL signup CD, he noticed, in very tiny print, a
warning which stated "may be harmful to anything with a brain." He
called the company to ask what the contents of the software are and
was astounded to find out that a marketing agreement with Microsoft
Corporation is one of the (actually he was told it's an operating
system patch which is one molecule away from Microsoft).
Therefore, just by the rodent using the computer running AOL, then
instant-messaging some of its vermin buddies, and then reading e-mail
sent through the AOL service, it ingested enough of the software to
destroy its brain. Soon after his hamster's , his housekeepers' two
cats also died of brain failure. They both used AOL to visit
chatrooms and send funny online greeting cards with smiley faces all
over them.
Necropsies weren't done on the cats, so they couldn't file a lawsuit,
but he asked that we spread the word to as many people as possible so
they don't lose their animals.
