Naming Ceremony

Hello and welcome.

I would like to thank you all for coming here today, for taking the time out of your busy life to be with us in celebration of our newest addition to the family. Without further ado, David, Jessica and I would like to introduce you to our new buddy, Popcorn the hamster.

Meet Popcorn

I’m pretty sure that hamster hates our guts. Really. I mean, I know it’s a baby and it’s only been two weeks, but it’s more antisocial than me! I try my best with it, every night I squeak squeak, smacking my lips at the cage. Eventually it will come up the ramp and hang about near me. I even offer it the finest hamster chocolate available (well, I’m not sure if that’s strictly true). Jess doesn’t even get this level of love and attention. The poor wee thing takes the chocolate from my fingers and bolts back into it’s wooden hut (with removable roof and 2, yup 2, windows). Ungrateful wee bastar….all I want is to give it a wee pet, a wee stroke of it’s soft fur. But nooooooo, it takes the chocolate, hides it then comes back for more – kinda like Jess, but more gracious and less bitey.

I’m confused. I done my research, got the right sized cage, a wheel, toys, food and fresh food (a rarity in my house). The wee thing even has a two story cage AND a wooden bridge AND a tunnel wrapped around the cage. What’s it’s problem?! Why isn’t it rolling over and letting me tickle it’s belly?!

Most night’s, when Jess is in bed – it clearly hates her the most, Popcorn comes out of hiding and stares. She sits on her bridge and stares. She can’t see the TV so it’s not that she looking at. Nope, it’s me. She’s staring right through me. Sometimes she jumps off the bridge onto the ledge, stands on her back legs and….stares. Even closer to me. She just stares. Is that normal? I’v had rodents before, but never a hamster. My pet rats, RIP Misty greatest rat to grace the planet, never did anything as creepy. Or if they did, when I went to the cage with a cheery ‘hello little lady’ they always greeted me with affection, maybe a wee lick o the finger. This punk? No, this hamster is broken. She kinda cowers when I approach, much like Dave when I’m hormonal, she takes the chocolate and runs away, much like myself when I’m hormonal.

 

Usual creeping staring spot

Look at it, just staring. Creep.

When Popcorn isn’t staring, shes chewing the cage. That cage that cost me money. The cage that I researched. The cage that I excitedly set up the night before bringing Popcorn home. That cage. The wee shit just chews it. Gnaw gnaw gnaw, every night. She has already chewed off one of the clip thingymibobs. Why she do this?! There’s plenty of other crap in the cage to chew, like the wooden ball with a twinkly, dinkly bell at it’s center. Which that ungrateful hamster has yet to play with.

Once she has polished off the plastic starter, she moves on the the metal main course, the cage bars. I’v come to the conclusion that she is teething. You can’t chew on a bar! Her teeth go through the bars, so shes essentially flossing. She flosses a lot. Right when you are in the middle of an important scene in Downtown Abbey. She doesn’t floss quietly. Don’t even get me started on the wheel, but at least she appreciates that by using it once in a while!

Being a terrified mother, I googled the weird cage chewing antics of Popcorn. You know what is says? That she’s bored. Or she hates her life and is trying to escape. I knew it. Told you she hates her life. Bloody cheek of it! I go spend valuable hours of my life trying to source the best toys to keep the furry wee gobshite amused and she’s bored?! *rollseyes*

I think I will have to agree with wise Google, it does appear that she is desperately trying to escape. Whether that be via biting a hole in the cage, scratching a secret tunnel from in her double windowed wooden hut or by suicide. I hold her on the sofa and shes quick to suss out the way to freedom, even if that path is a 30ft drop to the floor. OK, OK, my sofa isnt’t 30ft from the floor but to a tiny hamster is must be? She peers over the edge, thinks about her life choices and then will edge closer and closer to her doom. She just kinda hangs there, holding on for dear life with her back legs.

Look! Look at the love I give her and she would rather jump than come near me!

Surely my hospitality can’t be that bad that she would rather face a broken neck than spend another night in her cosy home?! When I pick her up, lovingly may I add, and bring her to my chest she makes a bee-line for the side of the sofa as if she is going back to her cage. But she’s not. She’s attempting to escape down the side, which is still a hefty drop of a little fluffy lady.

It’s got me, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Why won’t she love me? – I think I sound a bit like that crazy lady in Misery. God, is that what the hamster thinks? Must be.

Although, when I think about it, I think Popcorn hates me. She (stupidly) seems to like Jess, well, at least more than she likes me. She sat on Jessica’s knee for more than 2 seconds the other day, which is longer than it has ever stayed near me. Jess loves the poor wee thing, she is very affectionate and wants to snuggle it. Head first. Like you would hug a human or a large dog. But woe betide the hamster if it crawls on Jessica’s bare legs, we both quickly learnt that Jessica does NOT like hamster tickles (hence the throw over the legs in the pictures). No. The hamster will be immediately removed from her legs with a swift push and a pulling up of the legs. And the hamster may get a stern telling off from Jessica. Yet, the wee dafty seems to favour that nutjob over me. Fine. I’m not bothered. Good luck being fed this week, you ungrateful little furball.

 

Actually, Jess feeds it every day. She comes through from the kitchen with a handful of dried hamster food. And by handful I mean the tiny amount remaining in her hand, the rest is left in a convenient Jess shaped trail from the kitchen. Then Jess pulls me into the kitchen to cut carrots, which she eats and hands (throws) the remainder into the cage. And she is also obsessed with feeding the hamster ‘Choa-co-lat’.

Maybe the hamster is right to prefer Jess to my wonderful self, it gets plenty of food thrown in the cage and Jess is asleep by the time the hamster wakes. Prefect.

I don’t care. I’m still going to force myself upon it. It will love me, just wait and see!

 

 

 

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