WASHINGTON — All great tales are told as trilogies. “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Godfather” and “Police Academy” have stretched their compelling tales across the Cineplexes at least three times, allowing producers to wring every once of character development and plot twist out of your $9 ticket stub.

Those who have read this column over the years, might remember that my family has not had the best luck with pet rodents. So this will follow suit and be the third and final installment in my recounting the death of a pet rodent.

About eight years ago, we acquired a hamster named Speedy who had mastered a Houdini-like ability to release himself from the shackles of oppression and find his way to temporary freedom. For my young children, it was their first introduction to the circle of life: Farmer grows the hay, hamster eats the hay, hamster leaves the cage, black Lab eats the hamster. It was the natural order of things.

We replaced the hamster with a pair of Guinea pigs, named Brownie and Chance. After about 18 months without food, water or attention, Brownie left this earth looking like a furry little prune.

My children took the news with shock and dismay (after I reminded them who and what Brownie was.)  My daughter then  threw herself on the grave site, like a mafia widow saying goodbye to the Don, as the FedEx box filled with dehydrated rodent was lowered into the ground.

However, once alone, Chance showed he must have been a rodent of superior breeding.

For the next seven years he survived and thrived. He lived in a cage that contained a pink plastic igloo. As he became too fat to come out of the little opening, the shelter eventually fused itself to his back, forming a turtle-like shell. This hybrid creature of hamster and polyvinyl chloride found a way to adapt. Somehow, the shell must have created a layer of moisture that kept him hydrated during the drought-filled months, when apparently there was no water in the basement sink to fill his little bottle.

The shell also must have left him impervious to the effect of the multitude of flies, who magically hatched  every two weeks after I asked the  overly-repetitive question, “Is anyone EVER planning on changing that pig’s cage?”

To the flies that swamed around him, he must have seemed like king, or at least a lord, Chance — The Lord of the Flies.

I imagine his reputation amongst Guinea pigs is also a thing of legend. The pig survived NINE years (he was already a year-old when we got him) without food, water or attention. I have had cars that didn’t last nine years.

To the other pigs he must have seemed like Gandalf the Gray, the wisest among the wise.

I suppose I didn’t need to chew on laurel leaves like the Oracle of Delphi (or Logansport) to predict the end was near. He hardly ever nibbled any of the toxic paint off his cage and the last time I stuck my hand in, he failed to rip any flesh away from my fingers.

When the end finally came, there were very few tears. My two oldest barely even looked up from their cereal when I said it was time to dig the hole under the peach tree.

My wife pried his bloated little corpse out of the plastic igloo and he was buried under a large rock. We told my daughter it was like a grave marker, but the truth is it was just a way to keep the dogs from digging him up  — and leaving him on the deck by the grill.

In the short service that followed I said those famous final words — “Do you know anyone who wants a Guinea pig cage? Because we are never getting another one of those things again.”

n Todd Lancaster is the Sports Editor at the Washington Times-Herald. He can be reached at tlancaster@washtimesherald.com