Thursday, September 18, 2008

This is what happened

Let's rewind to Sunday morning after Jess' party on Saturday. She came to me and said that she wanted to buy a hamster with her birthday money. Since she has been bugging me for, oh, I don't know, about a year about a darn hamster, and my response to her is always the same. "Save up your money and you can get one." Well, she now has the money, so I can't really say no. Right? Right!

Off to PetSmart we go. We check out all the different types of hamsters (did you know there was more than one type? I didn't. A hamster is a hamster, Right? WRONG!!) Jessica went with the Miniature Chinese hamster. He was SO tiny, and actually kinda cute. In a furry, rat kinda way. ( I stress HE because the sign clearly stated "male" and the kind woman working said to me, and I quote "We only sell males because we don't want to have to separate male and female and we don't want little babies". Great! We'll take that one!
click on the picture, very clearly says "male"

Jess had a friend with her. Here is the brief conversation we had:

Jess~ I am going to name her Delilah.

Me ~ But it is a boy.

Jess ~ No, it's a girl.

Me~ No, the woman said they only sell boys. Why do you say it is a girl?

Jess & Friend~ We looked! (insert giggles)

Me~ Oh..OK...Maybe it's parts are too small and you just can't see it! ( I know, so wrong to say to a 12 and 13 year old, but they have already had the sex ed class in school)

Since we already have a boy cat named Sasha, I figured what will it hurt to have a boy hamster named Delilah.

Fast forward to this afternoon around 3ish. The boys were just waking up from their nap. I was on the phone with my sister (she was at work and I am wondering if the conversation was recorded) Delaney comes down stairs and here is this conversation:

Delaney~ Mommy, mommy, I was in the bonus room watching TV and I heard Jess' radio playing, so I decided to go lay on her bed and listen to her music. I was just laying there listening and I looked at her pet and it has..." here is where it gets a little fuzzy, I think she said...no...noway...

Me~What did you just say, Delaney?

Delaney~ I was upstairs in the bonus room watching TV and...

Me~ No, no, skip to the part about Jess' pet...

Delaney~ Her pet has babies!

ME~Babies? Are you sure?

Delaney~ shaking her head and grinning

Me~ Delaney, don't joke with me. Are there REALLY babies up there?

Delaney~yes mommy (still grinning)

ME~ Delaney, if I go upstairs and find out you are only joking, I am going to be very upset. Are you joking with me?

Delaney~ No!

at this point, because Delaney likes to play silly little jokes on people, I did not know if I should believe her or not. I dash up the stairs and....yep, Delaney is right... There are babies...
(I did apologize to Delaney for not believing her)

Eight of them! Yes 8. 8 little baby hamsters that I now have to raise. At some point, I have to take them away from their mother, figure out which are male and which are female (guess I can have Jess and her friend help with this one) and put them in separate cages so we don't have even MORE babies!

ONLY ME!!

OH...And I have called PetSmart to let them know that there boy hamster that they sold me now is a mother of 8! I swear if I was face to face with that little sh*t when he giggled at me I would have slapped him into next week!!

With that said, they did offer a few options

1 They would take every thing I bought and give me a full refund for it.

2 They would take mommy and babies and give me a replacement hamster (male, we promise)

3 They could take mommy and babies, keep them until the babies are old enough to wean from mommy and then give us mommy back.

4 They will give us extra food and bedding

I let Jess make the decision. She picked THIS hamster from all the others. This is the one she wanted. She is not ready to hand it back over for any amount of time. So, we are going tomorrow to pick up the extra food and bedding and see if I can talk them into giving me at least one more cage since I am going to have to get two more!!

Man this sucks!

On a side note...in about 8 weeks I will have a few hamsters to give away. If there is anyone close by that would like one for the low, low cost of $0, just let me know!

14 comments:

Sharlene said...

Is it wrong that I can't stop laughing about this one? Seriously. Hilarious.

Now if I am not mistaken hamsters will eat their young. You may want to look into that. I had a friend who kept two hamsters in a cage and one hamster decapitated the other. It was horrific.

Lisa & Gerald said...

didn't the hamster look chubby when you got the fake male that was prego! hehehehehehe

The Corradetti Clan said...

OMG, Sorry I cant stop laughing. Only you Terri would be so calm. I would be freaking out. They are cute in a "ratty" kinda of way! Sorry I dont want one!

Jamie said...

Oh my gosh!!!! Wow! Yeah, I would have called the store too! I hope they give you an extra cage too!!!

The Romero-Schroeder said...

LMAO, OMG so sorry but it is cracking me up!!!!!

Nancy said...

OMG! Please tell me that you freaked out just a little. LOL!

Terri said...

Shar~ yes, they do eat their young! And I was sure to so that article to Jess so she wouldn't touch the babies.

Lisa~nope, not chubby at all. Infact, it was tiny, since it is a dwarf. The woman told me it was full grown. Not chubby at all!!

Denise~did that post come off as calm? Maybe I should re-write it. I did, however, leave out a few words to leave it PG since Jess is sure to read this one!!

Jamie~ let's keep our fingers crossed about the cage!


Meike~Go ahead, get a good laugh out of it!!

Nancy~Yes, I did freak! And not just a little!

OK All of you!! That is enough laughing! SO not funny anymore!! lol

Debbie Moore said...

I am not laughing at all! This happened to us when I was a kid and when we separated the males and females when it was time, some how a male was in the female cage - oops, more babies! It was awful, we had so many darn hamsters it was insane!!! Good luck!

Jen said...

I am sooo laughing b/c it happened to us, too. BUT, we only ended up w/ 2 guinea pig babies, NOT 8! As far as that goes, I feel for ya... hope you don't end up w/ anymore babies before it's over with!

Brandi said...

OH MY WORD!!!!! I am so sorry but I cannot stop laughing! Of course you bought the female! LOL If we only lived closer...

The jones Family said...

Can't help but to laugh - sorry! Mike said to tell Jess good job - Way to pay attention in class! I think the cage/food/bedding is the least they should provide you!

fawndear said...

Sorry about the bad luck.
I think the store should take them back when they are grown and give Jess half of the profits.
I think a hamster was one of my kiddo's favorite pets and I could deal with them because their life expectancy was only 1-2 years not 18 or so for a dog or cat.
Wow, I'm still shaking my head that eight babies came out of one chubby hamster.

debi9kids said...

Giggling, giggling, giggling! I just find this so funny, I can't help myself. (and, I know at some point something wicked like this will happen to me where ou can laugh right back at me LOL)

Katie said...

I'm a visitor from the McNulty Quads blog and the exact same thing happened to me. We bought a hamster and named him Oliver to discover 4 days later that Oliver was actually Olivia. Unfortunately, none of them made it past the first night. I wish you luck :)