For the love of a hamster
Just for a change I will spare you the tales of my desperate sex and desperate poo and instead regale you with this tugging-at-the-heartstrings tale.

Hamster.

I've wanted a hamster for years. Actually, I've wanted a dog for years but there's no way I can keep one in a house with no garden. So I settled on a hamster. My ex (hello ex! I know he cyberstalks me cos he told me) owned a hamster as a child, so he's had his hamster-owning moment of glory. He knows what it's like to coo over a ball of fluff spinning on a cute wee wheel. Me? No. My mother is phobic about rodents. We kept ducks.

Valentines Day last year. A Hallmark holiday of utter shite. I don't buy into that red rose crap, but woe betide the bloke who doesn't do something to acknowledge the fact that my high-maintenance friends are all getting presents.

My ex arrives home all excited. "What do you really, really want?" he grins.

"A hamster?" I gasp, "You got me a hamster?!"

His smile broadens, and from beneath his coat he whips out... 'Getting To Know Your Hamster: An illustrated guide to pet care for young owners'. That's no hamster. He got me a fucking book. A book written from the hamster's point of view. ("I just love making nests and digging tunnels!")

My face crumbled but I tried to be brave. "I-I-I thought you'd got me a real hamster" (which, by the way, I was going to call Asbo - I had the names picked out and everything - O! cruelty! Gone! And never called me Mother!).

He looked at me as if I was simple. "Let's start with a plant. If you can keep that alive then we'll think about a hamster."

I'm now sitting here with a pot of geraniums and a bitter disposition. Here's the desperation bit: on my Facebook page I have a picture of a hamster. It vibrates when you click on it. I am so desperate to shower love on a small, furry, bitey thing that I have a virtual hamster.

Pity me. And weep.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 19:14, 16 replies)

Spare your pity
and buy yourself a hamster!

Why does it need to be a present from someone else?
(THIRTY-TWO - Sputnik -, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 19:23, closed)

self-hamstering
I would, but it's part of a devious self-deluding strategy. Y'see, I am away from home one night a week (sometimes more if the desperate sex kicks in) and I have a tendancy to take very long holidays involving driving small shit cars round the globe. I can't justify buying myself a hamster, but if someone forced it on me I'd have to take it and love it. A bit like having children really. I don't have any of those either.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 19:32, closed)

i wanted a hamster when i was young
one day my parents called me into the kitchen to show me something, it was a hamster running in a ball on the kitchen floor, i was overjoyed

upon closer inspection it was one of those battery powered toy hamsters my parents bought for a joke

bastards
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 19:36, closed)

I feel your pain
It's heartbreaking, isn't it. I say bill them for the therapy.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 19:38, closed)

you're sooooo much better off without one
both the man and the hamster, but in this case specifically the hamster.

we had one at uni. a ginger little shit called dennis who should really have been called houdini, despite being fatter than a blob of butter. he escaped all the time. he smelled. he bit us. he refused to get tame. he had gigantic testicles. he made a racket on his wheel every. single. night. he refused to die. he angled himself so his rancid piss went all over the floor instead of his cage. don't do it!

get a budgie instead. at least they can talk.

hamsters suck.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:16, closed)

oh no, don't shatter my dreams
(Dennis is a hamster, right? Not a fat ginger man with large testicles?) Even when he was pissing all over your worldly possessions wasn't he at least a little bit cute? Cuter than a pot of geraniums at least?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:25, closed)

the
hamter that pissed on the floor was better than the boyfriend that shat in the bed.

but not much.

how about a snake??
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:33, closed)

Temptation
Ooo, a snake is appealing.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:37, closed)

AND
they eat hamsters!!

although it might remind you of your ex, certainly would remind me of several of mine...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:38, closed)

snakey
no, he's a nice ex. It would definitely remind me of some of the other blokes though. Not always in a good way...
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:42, closed)

yeah
there's only one good way!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 21:45, closed)

I had 3 hamsters..
each got more eviler each time:

Hammy 1 (aka Candy): Sweet, best one.
Hammy 2 (name forgotton): Russian (very small) Ok, but bit occassionally.
Hammy 3 (aka Rose): ABSOLUTELY POSSESSED! Used to scream- was too terrified to touch it.

Still want another hamster but only if its a siberian one (hammy 1 was siberian).
(purplefairy, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 22:56, closed)

Hamsters suck...
I've worked at a pet store for two years, and can count on one hand the number of "nice" hamsters we have had come through. Save yourself the trouble of trying to tame a Satanic ball of fluff and go for something a little nicer (not to mention more intelligent), like a rat. My boy Leo hasn't bitten me once (even when I got him neutered), and he sleeps in my bed at night if I let him.
(NuclearMosquito, Wed 21 Nov 2007, 23:11, closed)

Give me an address and an envelope
and we shall entrust royal mail
(emcake putting a donk on it since, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 1:57, closed)

disposable pets
...and if I get one of these possessed demonesque hamsters, is it considered socially unacceptable to "lose" it and get a new one that's sweeter and lovelier? (This works with men, although I have an appalling tendency to trade in the sweet ones for evil ones.)
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 9:56, closed)

"for the love of a hamster"
did you make that up or did you like the jinny and shantih books as a kid too?!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 10:14, closed)