A friend told me how her first hamster died:
Her mum reached into the cage to pet it, and the hamster bit her. Startled, she yanked her hand back, not realising that the rodent was still attached. Due to the wonderful laws of momentum, the hamster flew like a fluffy potato through the air, until its wonderful journey was interrupted rather rudely by the living room wall.

The mum grabs the rather flatter hamster and puts it back into the cage, tucking bedding around it, and when my friend got back from primary school she was told that poor Hammy died in his sleep. Awww.

And the strange reddish stain on the wall in the shape of a splayed out hamster? Ketchup.

She told me she only found out the truth when her mum admitted it to her, aged fifteen.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 22 Dec 2011, 19:36, 1 reply)

Hmm
When my parents moved into my childhood home the previous owner had left a chicken coop in the back garden. My parents knew nothing about raising chickens so they discreetly killed the chickens, and told me for the next fifteen years that a fox had broken in and got them. This theory was lent credence by the fact that foxes actually did break in and kill the neighbours' geese, because there was a forest at the end of the road and the foxes used to congregate there in great numbers. Still: I was denied eggs for breakfast during my formative years.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 22 Dec 2011, 19:49, closed)