Murray Talks About Best Friends On Players' Tribune

As far back as I can remember, I wanted a pet. Honestly — for the longest time, it’s all I wanted in the entire world. It really didn’t even matter to me what it was. It was more the concept of it that seemed exciting. To have this animal companion, who was your best friend … what could possibly be better than that?

When I was 10, I finally got one: a hamster named Whiskey. At first, Whiskey mostly just lived in his cage. And I’d spend hours with him — watching him, playing with him, talking to him, feeding him. But after a while, in my mind, the cage began to seem too restrictive. I wanted Whiskey to be able to run free and hang out like a human.

(I’m 10, remember.)

We had one of those big, old-fashioned sinks in our bedroom. And so I tried to rig it with a rope holding down the drain, so that Whiskey could play in the sink. I thought it was brilliant, and Whiskey seemed to be having a great time — a real win-win.

(Again, 10.)

Of course, my sound logic did not completely hold up. It probably won’t shock you to learn that a few weeks later, Whiskey ended up solving the rig and managed to scurry all the way down the drain of the sink.

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Ten-year-old me was just devastated that he was gone. We set up a trap, with cheese — not one that would kill him, but just catch him so we could bring him home to safety — but never had any luck. Every time we tried it, the next morning the cheese would be gone … and there would be no Whiskey. It just wasn’t meant to be, I guess. Looking back, I like to think that if Whiskey was smart enough to beat the trap, then he was smart enough to make it on his own.

If you’re not an animal person, you might laugh at this. But I can still vividly remember how sad I was about it. It really felt like I had lost a friend.

Even at 10 years old, I knew: while animals aren’t human, that doesn’t mean they aren’t alive. There’s just something about them. If you get it, you get it. And I got it early on. I’ve loved animals ever since.

Read The Rest Of Murray’s Article In The Players’ Tribune