Just remembered something awful.

A few years ago my pet hamster committed suicide.

I think it might have had something to do with introducing him to the new female hamster from the other side of the cage. He went absolutely nuts, running around frantically.
Then I put her back into her own cage, and he must have thought that he had lost her forever, because I found him hanged from between the bars the following morning.

Just awful. (Sorry Hammy)


Does anyone else have a confession to share? Say it here and make your peace (and give the rest of us something to laugh about :-) ).

That's so funny! :-)

I have something too: when I was renting a room in London, my friend who works at a costume store, sneaked out a tuxedo for my live in landlord to borrow free of charge. He should have returned it after a week, or my friend would get in trouble, but he was lazy about it and just kept letting it drift. When the week nearly up I pressured him, but to no avail. I knew my friend would get into trouble, so I insisted he buy her a present to compensate, but being clueless he asked me to choose the gift. I picked out a hanging photograph frame which I thought would appeal to her and eventually, after much pressure, he took the suit together with the gift I'd chosen round to her house.

When I next saw my friend she was livid with my landlord about the suit, and to top it all he'd insulted her with this terrible, tacky photo frame thing. She asked me in one of those sharp, angry tones 'and did you see the state of the gift he bought me? Oh my god!'. Hmmm, I said nothing, but the whole thing still makes me laugh.

Oh god, that hamspter story is terrible!! That's really sad! I didn't laugh...:-(

OK, here's one from me. Years ago I used to clean houses to supplement the dole, and the tenants had done a runner from their house, leaving behind a perfectly good double bed. I could keep the bed, but had to get it from the top floor of a really narrow little house. Anyway, friend and I eventually shoved the bed over the balcony, onto the back of the ute, where it didn't land flat, instead denting the side of the ute. So then bright spark me attempts to do a bit of home panel beating (!), to, of course, no effect. Well it just made it worse, little hammer marks near the big dent. Gave up, took the ute back to the car rental place, which of course noticed the damage - but I'd never noticed this before!! How did that get there??;-) I got away with it, but was lucky I didn't have to pay for it. And once I'd got it cleaned, also ended up with a very nice bed.

Mine was actually the result of trying to be nice, but that doesn't make it any less cringeworthy. When I was an undergrad there was a lecturer I really liked (ok, fancied) and he basically got forced out of the department. I knew he had recently had a book published so I sent him an email saying that I would miss him teaching us and that by the way, I had really enjoyed his book. I didn't think anything of it until I met him in the street a few weeks later. It turned out there had been a problem at the printers and the publisher had recalled all the copies of the book - it had never even been on the shelves. So he wanted to know where I'd got my copy of his book from. I had to make up this really elaborate lie about how my sister works at another university library and she had got it for me. THEN, he says "oh I did my PhD at that university, I'll call in at the library and ask them to take it off the shelves"! I don't know which is the worse prospect: that he knew I was lying all along and thought I was a total moron, or that he believed me and turned up at the library and looked like a total nutter!
I still feel bad every time I think about it.

Sticking with animal confession stories...

When I was younger, I lived in an South Africa, and we had a squirrel monkey as a pet (like Marcel in Friends)... squirrel monkeys like to eat meal worms as treats, and rats tails kind of look like meal worms. I had an inquisitive mind back then and decided it would be a good idea to test the intelligence of my monkey, by seeing if she could tell the difference between a meal worm and my pet rats tail... needless to say, she couldn't. She just munched the tail. I felt terrible. The rat (Mickey) died as a result of his injuries. I was very young, and have never forgivven myself for that.

RIP Mickey.:-(

======= Date Modified 30 Oct 2009 23:26:29 =======
I 've been feeling guilty for laughing at the hamster story; I have done since being on the train this morning. I identify with the male hamster, I think that's why I found it so funny: there was a lot of recognition, and it made me feel better to know that hamsters get broken hearts too - oh dear, how could I be so callous? Cobweb, you've passed on your guilt to me.

Or maybe I just have a very dark sense of humour, yeah, that'll be it, people have said that to me before. I'm nice really, honest.

======= Date Modified 30 Oct 2009 23:51:48 =======
cobweb

when you said these stories could be for the rest of us to laugh, did you really mean it?

I have been reading this thread from a manicured Washington DC (arrgh, dying to get back to London), and have not felt so horrid ever before as after reading these stories..

I have three dogs which live with my mum, and I love them to bits and love all pets to bits, and am the first person to start weeping in a pet tearjerker even if the pet is simply just ill.

I really just don't know what to say...I feel so bad. I promise you the hamster was well loved and looked after before that happened.




Surely we are not the only people in this forum to have little sneaky stories to confess....? :-)

Actually, I've got a story about a hamster owned as an undergrad. It was bought on a Tuesday, so, in the name of originality, we called it Tuesday. Anyway, this hamster, which looked just like Hannibal the Hamster (http://www.ladybird-books.com/informationsource/ladybird/series497.php - scroll down a bit to see the book) was subjected to the student lifestyle and all its overindulges. Honestly, it could fit half a Cadbury's chocolate finger in its mouth - it did used to topple over on its side (because of the weight of the biscuit in its cheek pouches though) because of the weight of it! Unfortunately, living a student lifestyle meant that Tuesday also lived the student lifestyle: bits of kebab meat, chicken nuggets, Monster Munch, dried Batchelor's Supernoodles pushed though the bars of its cage. Anyway, it looked a bit of a wreck at the end of term (it stank of sweat too, but its cage was cleaned every 2 to 3 days), so a mate gave it to her mother to look after over the holidays. With the right care, frequent brushing and stroking and proper hamster food, Tuesday looked a million dollars for semester 2 - so celebrity detox does work. Unfortunately, reversion to the student lifestyle took its toll on Tuesday during semester 2 (mates getting drunk and feeding her junk) and she passed away, a happy but rock and roll little rodent. It lived fast and died young at the age of 2, passing away in its little hamster mansion. Tragically, with the right care, it could have lived till 2.5 or 3 years. We told my mate's mother that it had escaped its cage and was never seen again.

I would have rather been told it was dead than escaped - I would constantly worry about it! My rabbit just disappeared from my completely walled in garden last year. I suppose a cat must have got it, but I still like to think that she is living it up in some kids house being fed loads of scrummy hay. :-x

cobweb - I feel flattered on being such a style icon :p

Ok I've got another one. When I was a very young lady of about 21, my friend and I went on holiday to a farmhouse in France with some older friends in their 30s and early 40s, and one of their husbands - who I'll call George here. I knew France pretty well, but my fellow holidayers didn't; inspite my superior knowledge the firend's husband insisted he knew better than me about everything, from road directions to wine and food, despite the fact that he'd never been to France in his life and took no interest in the place. This lead to more than a few arguments and considerable tension, and my friend and I (the one the same age as me) began to really hate him, and either avoided him, or had the inevitable arguments: George had started to look pretty red faced, and stressed out. A few days after we got to Blighty, George had a stress related heart attack and died!!! We killed him! Yes, we killed our friend's husband. That still kind of makes me laugh. At the time my friend and I felt horrendous, although we did also see the funny side.

Eska! That's terrible! You gave a poor old man a heart attack! and killed him!!!



(I do kinda see the funny side...:-) )


I'm starting to wonder what I've unleashed here in this communal confessions thread...

something must be terribly wrong with my vision but I have been unable to see the funny side of any part of this thread till now :-)

But that's entirely personal, I am tremendously attached to my 87 yr old gran who's halfway across the globe, and to my 3 pet dogs (who are my siblings) and I live in a constant fear of getting a midnight phone call from there, after I lost my grandad following a similar phonecall last yr.

So, in all, every story on this thread is leaving me a little upset and I'm not reading it here on..

as i said, entirely my personal problem..

Bug, what about this? - not really a confession but highly embarrassing.

I was watching a tv programme about people cloning your car numberplate and then you getting fines. They were suggesting you then changed your own numberplate if you had this happen to you. At which point, my mother in law said how annoying it would be if you had a personalised number plate. and then I said....

"yeah but you would have to be a complete t**t to have a personalised numberplate haha"

and you guessed it, yes of course, they own two personalised number plates (although I stand by my comment).