Last Tuesday I had what was surely one of the strangest seminars since I have been here... :-)
A student began by telling me the story of some friends (by the way, she assures me that she knows the family!) - they went on holiday for a week abroad...leaving their pet hamster alone. On their return, they found out that the hamster had escaped from his cage...and there he was - stuck to the fridge! Apparently, the poor creature didn't have any food...in it's desperation it got out & searched for food...and found a small fridge magnet...ate it...and somehow became attached to the fridge...and couldn't get off, and died either from starvation or magnetic poisoning :-( I kid you not!!
I have searched the net, but found nothing to suggest that this is an Urban Legend...though one student told me he heard this story over the New Year on Czech TV...but heard it was true too...
Then another student told us how her family hamster also escaped, when she was younger...and someone was running the bath...They couldn't find the hamster until they went to turn the taps off & found the poor hamster - drowned in the bath :-(
I'd be interested to know if anyone has heard of the hamster with a magnetic personality!
Why would you go away for a week and leave a pet?
ReplyDeleteIndeed...and some people have even been known to leave their children! :-o
ReplyDeleteSo glad I've always vetoed having small furry creatures that don't do anything interesting! Can't believe that story though.
ReplyDeleteI think that these kind of fridge magnets cant be that strong to make him a hostage: His stomach is deep inside, as well as his hair are too bad surface for other physical laws, which contribute (a lot!) to increase the force of being "suck" on the fridge :) And - for the love of anything - why would he eat magnet? There are better things (mild, stinky) lying on the ground for a hamster... And why is the fridge in the story - is it because people imagine "food" after saying this word?
ReplyDeleteToo many impropabilities to make this story a fake.
Still, it is just a good story to think about, I suppose :)
Wow, I haven't heard about "magnetic hamster" but it happened to my family that when we returned from holiday we had 20 hamsters instead of two! The funny thing is that the stuff in the pet shop assured us that the hamsters are two males :D
ReplyDeleteJarda,
ReplyDeleteI have searched the net high & low & found no reason to doubt the veracity of it, though it sounds bizarre...however, I have contact with the student who told me this story & I will pursue it further with some 'investigative reporting' :-)
Petra...wow!! I only thought that rabbits did that! I guess the pet shop assistant hadn't had a lot of experience with judging the sex of hamsters?!? Didn't you notice if one of the hamsters was a little bigger than normal when you left??