One More For The Road…
Posted By AmyD. on May 22, 2007
Tip your glass for a finale farewell to Sinatra. He’s gone to that big hamster wheel in the sky. He had a good run, was well loved, and well cared for. He will be missed.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In honor of the furry, little critter who gave me one of my most favorite posts, here it is:
Who Knew?
Dear Diary,
Today I almost killed my daughter’s hamster.
The day started out as any other day. Kate has been at my mother’s for the past two weeks and even though she is only 3 minutes away it would seem that her social schedule has not allowed her to get away for even a moment to clean out poor Sinatra’s habitat.
Cleaning out Sinatra’s cage isn’t out of the ordinary for me this summer considering I had to do it for the 16 days that Kate was on the east coast and now for the past two weeks.
I was rather smug proud of myself that I found a way to make quick work of the royal pain in the ass inconvenient task. Rather than taking the entire house apart, I simply stuck the lovely, on-board, hose attachment to my beloved vacuum, down the tube and sucked out all the old shavings, hidden food and, well, hamster poo.
Usually I take Sinatra out and put him in his exercise ball to run around while I complete the task of being his maid. This actually makes him more like real family, the fact that I have to pick up after him just like I do everyone else. Today Sinatra was being a complete bitch a little more stubborn than usual and so I left him in one portion of the tube while I sucked out the other portion.
Imagine my surprise to find out that my bagless Bissell vacuum is a little bit more powerful than I had original estimated it to be. One instant I was cleaning out his “condo” the next instant there was a “shloooop” sound and he was gone.
In what seemed like an instant I had the filters out of the vacuum and was yelling for Ethan to come help me while trying to recall what exactly one might do to perform CPR on a Siberian Dwarf Hamster. Unfortunately, we wound up cutting the vacuum hose into three pieces. To be fair, Ethan cut the hose because I was a tad bit upset over the thought of having to tell Kate that I murdered might have been responsible for the untimely demise of her hamster.
Once we had hacked the tube to bits (always careful to make sure there was nothing in the section we were cutting) we realized that he was still stuck in the long, narrow, hard, plastic “working end” of the tube attachment. (Damn you Bissell and your quality construction.) Peering into the end of the tube (right before the accordian section starts) where we had just cut I could see his furry, fat, little ass and bear-like tail.
I pulled on his tail… no response. Tugged on his back foot… he tucked it up under him, I yelped with joy and then considered sticking the handle of a screw driver or wooden spoon down the other end to kind of shove him out. I then realized that while he might make a great, natural, pipe cleaner, I probably had a better shot of really injuring him, that is, beyond the damage already done to both his health and dignity.
So, Ethan stuck his fingers down the tube, grabbed his back legs and gently pulled him out. He was limp… Ethan laid him carefully on the floor so we could get a good look at him, suddenly he sprang to life and ran down the hall in his weeble-wobble fashion. He’s pretty quick for a little fat-ass.
Now, he’s resting quietly, obviously traumatized by the whole event, and I have to go look for a replacement tube for my vacuum.
As my husband kindly pointed out, “A new hamster would be cheaper.”
Yes, but a new vacuum hose is easier on my conscience, thank you.
——————————————————————-
Here’s to you, little man and to the beautiful red-haired girl who loved you, thanks for being part of our family.
About The Author
Poor Sinatra, and poor Katie!
oh no! how did Katie take the news? And it wasn’t death by vacuum again was it?
pee ess: please send me instructions on how you got the music to play on the abdobe flash player thingy. I had wanted to put a song in a blog post last night, and so I downloaded that macromedia thingamabob, but could not figure out how to get it in the actual blog because I suck.
Maybe it’s just me, but seeing that picture at the beginning of a eulogy post gives the instant impression that you crushed Sinatra to death.
Ohhhhhh, poor little Katie!!
Poor little guy. I hope he gets a proper burial – you know, not one in a vacuum
Aw, I’m sorry.
I’m with Joefish. Say it isn’t so!
Awwww.
Raises glass – Salute to Sinatra! Long may he roam around in that big hamster ball in the sky.
Avi Katie seems to be doing a little better this morning. It was very strange not hearing his wheel last night.
Bluepaintred Nope, no vacuums involved. I saw him “sleeping” yesterday afternoon and tapped on the side of his condo like I normally do – and he didn’t hop up to say hello.
Also – the music thing is a WP plug-in so that all I have to do is add a tag with the URL of the song.
Joe I did NO such thing!!! You and your picture issues lately!
Miss B I know. I feel so bad for her this is the first pet death in the family. Well, the first that the kids know about. They think our first cat ran away…
Crazy Lady Proper burial. Although, Mike wanted to smush him into a very thin cigar box because it would make a cool coffin. Kate and I declined his offer. We put him in a lovely box and buried him in the backyard.
Chickie That was the only pic I had of him and I had a bitch of a time getting that one (he was really young then).
Marti To Sinatra!!
Aww…my condolences to the family of poor, fuzzy Sinatra.
I’m just sayin’.
Yeah, I thought the same thing about the photo.
dammit. wordpress has everything, doesn’t it?
My condolences on Sinatra’s(great name for a hamster, by the way) passing.
When I was a kid, we had a hamster that committed suicide. It climbed out on this little ledge that was at the top of three flights of stairs, and did a swan dive. He hit the grandfather clock at the bottom, and that was it. Poor little fellow. if only he had told us what was wrong, we might have been able to help.:cry:
That really sucks. I am sorry for your loss. It is always hard when a pet dies.
KG Thank you.
Joe It does not look like that at all! Sheesh!!!
Avi How often have you tried to photograph a wiggly hamster?
Bluepaintred Pretty much!
Paticus Awwww, that’s really sad!!
MrFabulous Yes, it is. Thank you.
poor little thing! at least he has an interesting story to tell when he gets to hamster heaven.
Is that a euphemism?
“Wriggly Hamster”.
I take photos of my wriggly hamster all the time. Even when I’m not choking him!
Good Gawd Woman, you can tell a story!!
Very amusing story, I’m sorry for you and daughter that he’s gone.
Awe
Poor guy…what a shame
I miss him, really, i actually cried reading this!!!!!!
[...] Amy said farewell to Sinatra, the family hamster. Apparently Sinatra is also the name of some famous singer. [...]