2001-07-07 - 11:43 p.m.

I Get Bit

I decided that the Hamster Palace was smelling entirely too... hamstery. So I decided to clean hamster cages today while Lily was at work.

It's hot, wet, sweaty work, even in an air conditioned apartment. There are eight cages and it takes a little less than two hours.

Basically cleaning hamster cages is a smell transference project. At the beginning the hamsters smell bad, and I smell okay. At the end of the process, the hamsters smell okay, and I smell bad. Hey, it's magic!

Arbitrarily I decided to start cleaning on the north side of the Library. That meant that the cage with Linda and her as-yet-unnamed daughter was first.

It's really unusual that these two female hamsters are living together peacefully. It's rare for two male hamsters to live together without fighting, but since females are more territorial I can't recollect two females critters living together, ever. But they could start fighting at any time.

The drawback of them living together - the baby is very nearly the same size as her mother. I may have a hard time telling them apart soon. Right now the surest way to make sure who is who is to try to pick one of them up. Linda is semi-tame, but the baby is utterly wild. There is no picking her up without a long struggle.

So, I got a big surprise when I tried to pick Linda up.

Since it was morning, both hamsters were asleep. I nudged Linda awake, then I picked her up. Linda then tensed up, did a partial summersault in my hand and sank her teeth into my thumb. Of course I dropped her back into the cage.

In a very foul mood I then went into the bathroom and cleaned the bite and put a band-aid on it. I then went into the closet, got out my winter gloves, and just gabbed the two of them and put them in the holding cage. I wasn't terribly gentle. I just wanted to clean the damn cage without turning it into a big production number.

And then I thought about it. Whose fault was it that I got bitten? Mine, of course. Hamsters don't have enough brains to be responsible about anything. They are the way they are and it's up to me, as resident responsible party, to make allowances for that.

I made several mistakes in handling Linda. First off, I wasn't completely awake. I just wanted the hamsters out of the cage so I could clean it, I didn't take the hamster's feelings into account. Having Linda bite my thumb certainly woke me up.

When you pick a hamster up, you have to do it when the hamster is ready, not when YOU are ready. That means you have to be patient, let her smell your hand, let her wake up a little. Rushing things is really asking for it.

The other mistake I made was in how I picked her up. I reached in and just grabbed her, when I should have gently scooped her up, putting my hands underneath her, not over her. Hamsters much prefer to be picked up that way.

I shouldn't be too hard on myself - apparently I thought Linda was tamer than she really was.

The next cage to be cleaned was Jenniham's, and she is a hamster with a notoriously bad disposition. So bad, in fact, that her nickname is Naziham. Also, she's an older hamster and that also makes for a cranky critter.

So I took my time, made sure she was awake, and I moved very slowly. I picked her up with no trouble and took her to the holding cage.

The rest of the morning went much better.

When I got to Sweet Moses' (Lily's special hamster) cage, he was being just adorable. He is a very, sweet gentle fellow and he was being especially charming today.

The last cage I got to was Cinnie's, on my desk to the right of my computer. She was being very cute, too, but in a different way. She is now very tame, but she is a very active hamster and once she is awake she never stops moving, unlike Sweet Mo who sleeps most of the time.

Later in the evening Lily was playing with her Playstation while I was organizing an attack in Planetarion. Cinnie, as is her habit, was climbing up her water bottle and chewing on her cage. The noise of her doing that is very annoying, so I usually stop it by taking out her water bottle. Instead I lifted up the top of her cage and she climbed out. I let her run around on me for a while, but she just wore me out.

So I put her in one of the clear plastic hamster balls (I have FOUR of the damn things) and let her run around the apartment. She hasn't liked the ball too much before this, but tonight she went crazy, running all over the apartment. Lily thought it was especially cute that Cinnie seemed to be following her around. The ball kept running into her ankles while she was making dinner. Later Cinnie wandered in to say hello while she was in the bathroom.

A sweet moment, but I have my work cut out for me, taming Linda and her little girl.