RIP Hammie

Garrett had a mechanical hamster named Hammie.  This was one of those little hamsters that came with a clear ball that you can buy at Cracker Barrel, like the one below.

In the last four years or so, we’ve made many a stops at Cracker Barrel restaurants.  All the driving back and forth to Oklahoma and going on trips made this possible!  I like to stop there because you know it is going to be decently clean, if it is a meal time, you can eat decent food, and you can shop (all in the name of stretching your legs!).  Well, Garrett had wanted one of these hamsters forever!  So, finally, one trip a few years ago, he had enough of his own money with him to buy it himself.  Like most toys, he played with it a while, then we wouldn’t see Hammie for a while.  BUT, he would always reappear when it was time for a trip.  Hammie made the trip to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, minus the big plastic ball, that I think disappeared long ago. 

Anyway.  Just as we were getting ready to leave Grandma’s and head for home someone hollered “Callie has a hamster in her hair!”  I came into the room to see Hammie hanging from Callie’s head by her hair.  She had turned it on and gotten the wheels too close to her hair, and yes, the wheels had sucked her hair up onto the axel.  The hair was not budging.  I really, really did not want to cut it.  She has not ever had her hair cut.  It is finally coming in thicker, not a lot longer, but it least it is thicker!  We finally determined that the only way was to cut it out.  I let the hamster dangle to go get scissors and, it fell to the floor.  With a huge chunk of Callie’s hair.  She didn’t seem the least bit disturbed about it but was excited because now “Hammie looks like a horse!  He needs to go in a barn”, and she proceeded to start setting him up in a barn.  Yes, Hammie had so much of her hair it looked like a horse’s tail.

But, the story doesn’t end there.  Move ahead a few days, we are home.  I hear the same call, “Callie has a hamster in her hair”.  Seriously people?  Again?  I would think this would be a lesson learned after one time.  No one will fess up to getting the hamster too close to Callie’s head.  This time Hammie was in the back of her hair, so I’m not convinced that she didn’t have a little help getting him there!  Well, it was twice as much hair this time and still not moving.  I wasn’t going to do what I did last time, and I was definitely not going to cut out that much hair!  So, Hammie met his demise by way of a screwdriver.  I pried his little wheels off and unscrewed his battery pack, and retrieved the hair.  Very tangled hair I might add!  I feel a little bad about Hammie.  He actually survived two moves and many trips without being lost.  But, I think it was a good lesson for the boys.  When it comes to girls, it’s all about the hair!