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| the carcass of an animal downed by feral hamsters |
A while ago we promised our children hamsters. We attempted to buy some from ‘a lady who doesn’t give her name and will only sell them from a car park if you give her the secret code’, and failed. Fortunately we found somebody who breeds them in a happy and clean environment. Nearly 3 months ago we purchased them. They are neither Russian nor Syrian, what they are is open to debate……….
Day one: The petrol burned in the trip to and from the hamsters’ birthplace had a greater value than the collective cost of all the equipment needed, food and RRP of the hamsters. This should have been the first warning sign.
Hamsters were named. Put into their separate boxes. Driven home. Blondie has the cutely named Harriet ‘The’ Hamster and Ginger has plumped for the more culinary moniker, Pumpkin. They girls handled them, handling them regularly is the key to a symbiotic rather than parasitic relationship. They were popped into their lovely clean, scented sawdust carpeted, Guardian Newspaper lined homes, complete with big tube to scamper through and strawberry huts to sleep in. They were then put in Ginger’s room.
Day two: All good. Although the upset of moving seemed to have given Harriet ‘The’ Hamster a bout of dysentery. But we have all been there haven’t we. Sadly – this case of the hamster squits occurred as she ran through her tube – leaving a lovely brown stinky trail across the top of the set of drawers. The cat wandered in to take a look, was screamed at by the girls and exited rapidly with the words ‘Tabs you are banned from my room’ ringing in her ears.
Day three, four and five: Nothing too much happened here, except the two adorable little rodents refused to be handled – they hid, jumped and skittered away from any attempt at human contact. Pumpkin then seemed to spend the next week stuck in her tube.
Day six: Or halfway through the night of day five. Ginger and Blondie climb into bed with us, weary and teary from the inability to sleep through the Harriet ‘The’ Hamster and Pumpkin’s nocturnal routines.
Day seven to fourteen: A repeat of three, four, five and six, with some cage cleaning. Girls are losing interest in them rapidly. My wife and I are feeding and watering them. I am cleaning out the cages and flinging the windows open in an attempt to rid the room of the putrid smell of hamster.
Day fifteen: We buy some new hamster food that has ‘I EAT MEAT’ emblazoned on it. My wife discovered this to her great discomfort, first hand. Whilst reaching that ‘first hand’ into Pumpkin’s cage clutching a tray of the new hamster meat, the vicious little shit launches itself at her in an American Werehamster in Leigh, John Woo slow-mo style. Claws out, eyes rolled back, teeth bared and ready to sink themselves deep into her hand, fur rippling in the eddies of its our airstreams. I think someone had crossed-bred this creature with a mosquito because the bleeding would not stop. It was only 24 hours later that the tiny yet significant wound ceased bubbling forth; blood only to be replaced with bruising.
Days sixteen and onward until last week: The girls have moved out of the bedroom (the largest bedroom we have) and moved into the box room (a room so small that Her Majesty’s Prison Service would refuse to use it). The girls are also not even looking at them for fear they will somehow enter their minds and telepathically persuade them to set them free and subsequently get eaten alive. We continue to clean and feed them, our reluctance to do so growing daily.
Day, just before last Sunday: Blondie screeched out, 'Daddy, come in in here! There is something really important you have to see! This is really serious DAD! REALLY SERIOUS! COME NOW. JUST GET OUT OF THE BATH AND COME HERE - IT IS SO SERIOUS!' I arrived in the room, towelled up, to find a daughter in tears and Harriet 'The' Hamster's cage bust open and no fat little rodent in there. Tabs was prowling the room no doubt thinking, 'It isn't only hamsters that eat meat you know'. Cat ejected, door shut, and so began a day of listening on hands and knees for rustling. At one point I was wearing an Early Learning Centre doctor's stethoscope listening like an expert safe-cracker to the base of various wardrobes and chest of drawers. Giving up on stealth I purchased a long seaside fishing net and just started scooping at all the dark parts of the room that my arms could not reach. In ten minutes I had caught the rotund rodent and I think it actually swore at me. It certainly eyeballed me. And yes I was wearing gardening gloves the whole time.
Day, last Sunday: Fed up with everything we embarked on a gigantic clear-out of our kitchen and utility room (laughably name as the end of our kitchen which houses the washing machine and fridge) about 20 bags of crap that has been collect over the years, I use the term collected as a clear alternative to the words ‘not thrown out’, the hamsters now live above the washing machine. Tabs guards them as closely as Kevin Costner guarded Whitney Houston, the smell is expelled by a simple wafting of the back door, the girls can sleep in their rooms again. We continue to feed and water and clean them. Nobody, to date, has attempted to handle them.
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| Run little rodent run, your mortality depends upon your ability to entertain your owners, and at the moment, you ain't that funny. |
Such is our warmth towards these rodents; we are now creating a doomsday clock for them. They are already hitting the snooze button.
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