the great escape

Sometimes at night Mutton Chop (the hamster of joy and affection) tips her wheel into the side of her glass cage and continues to run, making an unholy racket and waking J (not me, I find that I sleep through almost all of the things that get J up at night). Therefore he has been known to take her wheel out in the middle of the night so he can sleep.

Last night he did this. Took the wheel out, put the lid back on the cage, put the heavy book on top of the lid to keep her securely inside, and went back to bed. Upon waking this morning it appears that Mutton was actually still in the wheel when he took it out last night, though, and while J thought she was safely in her cage she went wild and ran all over the apartment. Yay! The moment she has been waiting for all her life had finally arrived!

I woke up to hear J running frantically around the apartment - when I came into the living room he was crouched on the floor looking under the couch for...something. Then the fateful words:

"Mutton escaped."

DUN DUN DUN! The search was on. It's so infuriating to look for a hamster because they make these little scurrying noises that sound like they are coming from anywhere but their actual point of origin. After a few minutes everything we could lift was piled in the middle of the floor and we still hadn't found her.

Hamsters do not come when you call their names. They work harder to hide. They are tricky and fast and very...small.

J began ripping cushions off the couch and doh! there she was, scurrying about in the disgusting amount of crumbs and lint that hitherto I'd been much to lazy to vacuum up.

She was freaking out.

Her hair was all matted and gross looking, her eyes were crazed. The ultimate sign of fear in a hamster is when they poof up their cheeks, lay their ears forward and put one paw out menacingly (I assume it's menacing to something smaller than a hamster, but it made me laugh and run for the camera). Alas she'd begun to run quickly from one end of the couch to the next by the time I could take a picture and that's when I realized that I probably wasn't calming her down any by flashing bright lights in her little beady eyeballs. She did other terrified hamstery things like shaking and jumping at the smallest noise. It was so sad! We talked soothingly and lay some seeds and pieces of banana out for her to get so she'd feel better. She shoved everything in her cheek pouches and tried to burrow into the couch. That didn't work at ALL, but it did draw to our attention that mystery strappy thing at the back of the couch...she'd chewed it up.

After a while we picked her up and gave her lovies, but she was spazzing so into her cage she went and oh! the reunion she had with her shavings and hamster castle and most particularly, her water bowl. (Mutton recently chewed huge holes in her water bottle, destroying it, so we've switched to the bowl method...a much messier, wetter choice so far)

Thus ended the excitement of the morning; our poor little baby is safe once again.