The not-so-great escape

After getting the kids pottied and started on their breakfast this morning, I headed off to the bathroom to begin my transfiguration from sleepy ogre to something resembling a regular white-collar human being. Suddenly there were panicked calls from the living room. “Daaad!”

“What?” I growled. The transformation had not yet begun.

“Spongebob’s gone!”

The hamster managed to muscle his way out of his cage at some point during the night. Since I actually collapsed for the evening in my bed instead of the couch, I didn’t hear the door snap open. I grabbed the flashlight and started checking out the places that a hamster might find appealing – underneath the rolling shelf-drawer-thingy that his cage sits atop, under the rolling computer cart, under the rolling cart that doubles as an end-table (I have a lot of mobile furniture), under the little tables in the corner of the dining room, under everything in the kitchen – stove, fridge, rolling microwave stand, etc., and behind the couch. All that searching yielded nothing. I found dust bunnies, but no hamster.

Ironically, just Saturday Ms N helped the kids clean up the area around the hamster cage. I had two bins – one overflowing with stuff for charity and another overflowing with stuff for Alex’s room – against that wall. The clear floor looks a heck of a lot nicer, but the endless supply of nooks and crannies amidst the chaotic pile of crap provided places to hide. It might have narrowed our search area had the mess still been there. Then again, before we could look anywhere else, we would have had to pull everything out of those bins without squashing Spongebob. I guess there are pros and cons. The overriding pro is that the living room looks so much better. Thank you again, Ms N.

Anyways, I set Emily to work on putting peanut butter inside the two hamster balls. The search was going to have to stop – we’ve got work and the kids have their last day of school. Eventually he would come searching for food, and the coated ball would hopefully occupy him for a while, or at least keep him centered around one spot until we returned home.

Just as I was about to resume my morning transformation, I noticed a spot of yellow. My couch and loveseat are on adjacent walls. The living room isn’t that big, so the two pieces of furniture touch. The corner behind them is effectively cut off. I have a bookshelf and a lamp back there, plus we frequently keep a blanket of Alex’s in that corner. Spongebob was sitting on the bottom shelf partially hidden from view because of the blanket.

I put the one peanut-butter-ball near him. He promptly ignored it. I moved the blanket enough to put the other ball on the other side of the shelf. This freaked him out, and he squeezed his way around the first ball to try to escape. I put the second ball right out in front of the corner where the couch and loveseat meet. I then moved the blanket. This steered him through the tiny gap between the seats and right to the ball. I scooped him up and returned him to his cage, which he seemed quite happy to see again. By the time I showered and finished up the deogrefication process, he was fast asleep.