Ventilation bad idea!
I was about 12 and we had just moved 100 miles away from all my friends. I was just beginning to feel cool and accepted in the group of (mainly older) friends when Mother and Father thought it best to up sticks and move to the middle of bloody nowhere! Their reason for this was to keep us away from drugs and murder like what you get in the city. They didn't realise though that folk in the middle of nowhere are more stoned than city goers by miles. Not so much a problem when you only have to be alert once in a blue moon for a tractor going passed or something.

Anyway! I thought that rather than make new friends (too much hassle, all teuchters) I'll just get a hamster 'til i'm old enough to move back to Glasgow. I begged Mum and Dad for ages and promised to look after it. Eventually my birthday came and Rodney was a present from my folks in October. How i loved Rodney the hamster, named after Del Boys hapless brother, and how i tended him. I was like Lenny for a while!! He had a nice big red cage with a wheel and a wee hoose and everything. Paradise for a hamster, never short of food but not given too much either. Water bottle re-filled everyday etc etc

So Christmas rolls around and i get the chance to visit my pals back in the land of the living. I was apprehensive about leaving Rodney but made every effort to ensure his well-being until my return. He had lots of extra cotton wool, two big bowls of food and two full water bottles. All set. I was slightly concerned that with all the extra cotton wool, he would get too hot so I opened the window slightly to let some air in for him and set off for civilisation.

Mum and Dad were visiting their friends and i was across the road with my pal. We had a great snowball fight at midnight on Hogmanay and I got drunk for the very first time on my pal's Dad's home brew.

We arrived home late New Years day and i couldn't wait to see Rodney. Happy New Year to him i thought as i ran up the stairs with the enthusiasm of a 5yr old on Christmas morning.

"Happy New Year Rodders, ye wee scamp"
"Rodney? Where are you?, wake up man i've missed you"

I closed the window over and began to prod around his cage. The cotton wool was not soft and fluffy as i remembered but hard and brittle. I had found Rodney, curled up in a wee hamster ball, frozen stiff! The concern i'd had regarding temperature had not extended to the fact that it might get too cold for him with the window open. Poor wee thing. He must've shivered away to a miserable death while i was falling off my pal's couch and staggering aboot.
I put him on the radiotor for a couple of hours in the vain hope that he would leap to life victoriously and scurry to my side. Not to be. He was deid! I was gutted! It was a freezing cold night and a pish start to the new year.

So, accidental cruelty or just dumb as fuck? You decide but kids take heed of this advice: Don't leave your bedroom window ajar in sub-zero temperatures when you are trying to conserve the life of an innocent wee hamster.

I would like to take this opportunity to say "I miss you Rodders you plonka. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a happy(er) New Year in hamster heaven."

I don't have length.
(Scoopfoot loves lamp, Sat 8 Dec 2007, 15:28, Reply)