t’s been a day.

The kind of day you don’t think about when your five-year-old pleads with you so winsomely for that seemingly innocuous little ball of fluff in the pet store.

The kind of day I shall work very hard not to think about in the months and months to come.

Today Jacqui’s Chinese dwarf hamster, Kai-Lan (yes, odd name for a hamster, I know, but she was Chinese after all), died.

It was a sad, sad day.

There was wailing.

And sobbing.

And gnashing of teeth.

And, “Oh, Momeeeeeeeee!!! I don’t think I’ll never ever be happeeeeee!! Never ever againnnnnnnnnnn!!! WAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

So we did what any sensible parents would do.

We got a replacement. Post haste.

Eensy beensy problem though. Pet store was fresh out of Chinese dwarf hamsters. Instead they had some cute little robo dwarf hamsters. Would I perhaps be willing to take one of those instead?

Meh. Sure. Why not. To-may-to, ta-mah-to… dopey, sneezy, grumpy, bashful — a dwarf’s a dwarf right?

Negatory.

There’s a HUGE difference.

The second we opened the box was the second I began scrambling to form a plot to get the hypersonic little vermin back into the box so we could take it right back to the pet store. Unfortunately I was 0.99237986 seconds to slow in this thought process. (more…)