Humphrey
I need to tell you about this little creature.
I’ve really tried hard to make him look cute, but he wasn’t. His name was Humphrey (thanks Betty G Birney and your Humphrey the Hamster books). This was a couple of years ago, so Humphrey’s dead now, but don’t feel sorry for him.
This is where he lived at the end of the hall.
Perfectly nice accommodation, I hope you agree. A tunnel, a wheel, places to climb and hide, a cosy bedroom on the left. Lovely.
Humphrey loved to sit in his little sphere in the sky, putting the world to rights. His favourite pastime was to stick his bum out of the sphere and squirt a load of wee wee down the tunnel until there was a nice puddle at the bottom, indicated by the dark area in the sketch. When the puddle was full enough, he turned his little bumpty round and jumped.
He loved his urine slide.
And he loved the way it matted into his fir and the way it made him stink.
Diane always said that hamsters were supposed to be clean animals, so one day, when she was getting fed up of cleaning the stinker and we were driving passed the vets, she wondered if I could jump out and ask the vet if there might be anything wrong with Humphry.
I said no, no definitely not doing that, no way, then I went in.
It was busy but the vet was at the reception, and as I was explaining the urine slide to the receptionist, the vet overheard the conversation and looked like this for a while:
He thought about it, long and hard, and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid there’s bad news, Mr Young.’
I sensed everyone in the waiting room was listening because we all get excited about other people’s bad news.
He shook his head solemnly and I braced myself.
”From what you’ve said, I think your hamster is…’
…a dirty boy.’
And that was the diagnosis. Humphrey was a dirty boy. Everyone in the waiting room enjoyed it (nearly).
There’s a happy ending. He didn’t charge me for the ‘dirty boy’ diagnosis which was a surprise for vets.
Six months later Humphry escaped, chewed up two carpets in two separate rooms, left midnight plops everywhere, and barricaded himself behind the downstairs toilet causing Diane to temporarily go insane and start a SAS-style campaign to catch him.
(Diane insisted that I tell you, she didn’t try to kill him with a M16 assault rifle and she was the only one that loved him and cleaned him out.)
After a four-night campaign outside the toilet, she got her hamster, shoved him back in his cage, went to bed and forgot to put the lid on.
A second tour of duty began the next night. Two days later he was back where he belonged.
Mission accomplished.
We’re still recovering from the cost of two new carpets and a new unit for behind toilet. Thanks Humphrey you little tinker. (Diane uses tinker as a serious swear word, so insert your favourite swear word in there if you like, he deserves it.)
Just a word of warning though. I think Humphrey faked his own death, it looked too staged to me, curled up all cute in his cage. I think he’s still out there, destroying homes and leaving wives in tatters
Be vigilant.
Thanks for reading.
Ian
(If you want to leave a comment below, that would be great)
We also gained a hamster as my son loved the Humphrey books. He begged for one . After it bit him, he took nothing to do with it and I had to do everything. Wee bugger waited til we went on holiday and paid for a small animal sitter, died the first day of our holiday and ended up in a Tupperware in the pet sitters freezer and was returned to us frozen solid! No refund either.
That’s funny Lisa. No refund, the pet sitter had to do a lot of work there, sitting by the freezer 🙂
This is hilarious 😂 Thank you, made my day!!!
Glad you enjoyed it, Caroline. Have a great weekend 🙂
We had a hamster called Raymond who was lovely..but woe betide anyone who woke him up….he would scream a high pitch blood curdling scream….unfortunately it made me laugh and I would wake him up willy nilly to amuse my guests..
Haha, Raymond, I love the name. I don’t like being woke up either, don’t think I do the high pitch blood curdling scream though. I’d definitely be waking him up, sounds hilarious 🙂
I always enjoy your weekly newsletter, and your cartoons. This one no exception- made me laugh out loud! Poor Humphrey ( and Diane) !
Thanks Ginny, glad you enjoyed it. We won’t be getting another hamster, that’s for sure. Have a good weekend 🙂
As always, laugh out loud stuff! when you gonna do some more YouTube videos they were so brilliant?
Thanks David, glad you enjoyed it. And thanks for enjoying the videos. Be careful encouraging me like that, your enthusiam may inspire me to do some more 🙂
You are awful. I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room reading your story and burst out laughing, snorting then crying and had to stop! I have no sympathy for hamsters, ours took a chunk out of my finger and then committed hari-kari from the top of his pod. No-one was sorry in the slightest!
Haha, sorry Maureen about the doctor’s 🙂 Why are hamsters supoosed to be good pets? They stink, they’re grumpy and make a load of noise on their wheel at night. I don’t understand.
When I was in High School I volunteered to look after the school hamster in the summer holidays…….you guessed it…. it died. It was before the days of Internet and one of the neighbours said that it might not be dead but that they sometimes went into a coma but if you left them in the sunshine they came round. It was the front of the house that got the sun so there were some curious glances from people walking past……why was there a 12 year old child guarding a seemly dead hamster from the neighbourhood cats? Oh and the neighbour was wrong (surprise, surprise)….I spent the rest of the hols distraught and worried sick about breaking the news to the rest of the school!
Haha Janet, that is funny and sad at the same time. Well done, for trying. I didn’t try that hard with Humphrey. But we did give him a good burial in the field behind our house 🙂
Brilliant! Hilarious as usual! My Hamster story is my two boys had one called Lucky. I worked in a Pre-school and he used to spend his time between home and there. The children loved him. I took him home for the 6 week holiday and gradually all his fur came out. He was a just a bag of skin with eyes. I couldn’t take him back to Pre-school for fear of frightening the Children. Not so lucky Lucky! 😂😂
Poor Lucky, a bag of skin with eyes 🙂 At least wee couldn’t stick to his fur, should’ve shaved Humphrey 🙂