A Hamster in a Hurricane

We've all heard the expression, "like a hamster in a hurricane." Okay, me neither but it should be an expression and here's why. Tonight the kiddo came to me complaining that she can't sleep because of her hamster. I went with her to check the situation out even though to be honest I could hear the noise in my room with both of our doors closed. I had a pretty good idea what the problem was. The hamster cage I bought for my kiddo has a giant wheel for them to run in. The wheel was full of hamster food so every time they ran, the food would go half-way up the wheel and then come crashing down. It was noisy and annoying but better then hamsters she has had in the past. In the past the hamsters would be chased by fully digested food. Okay, before it was crap, a big load of hamster crap. So as I said, food is better. The obvious solution was to clean the food out of the wheel. Only two problems, 1) One of the hamsters bites....a lot, 2) I really don't like to get bitten by hamsters and 3) damn if I can tell the difference between the two hamsters. I tried to coax the hamster out to no avail. I finally disconnected the wheel and took the wheel with the hamster inside out the garage. I fired up the Shop-Vac and stuck it over the mouth leading into the big hole the hamsters use to get into and out of the wheel.

The hamster continued to walk around the wheel until he got to one of the openings leading to the center of the wheel and then he would stretch out his arms and legs and all of his fur would be laid flat by the air pressue from the vacuum. For fun I would slap the bottom of the wheel to try and make him lose his grip. In case you have ever wondered, hamsters have a pretty good grip when they are trying to avoid being sucked into the Shop-Vac of death. I got the wheel all cleaned out after 5 minutes and the hamster although it seemed tired didn't seem any worse for the wear. Which gives me an idea because I am so tired of cleaning cat hair off all my clothes....