2 posts tagged “hamster”
This is a true story about hunting for my eight year old son's hamster, AWOL.
AWOL broke out of her cage and has been on her mission for 24 hours now...
Throwing the clothes in the dryer is an every day affair, hamster on the loose or not. I did shake all the clothes out before tossing them in the washer. My first thought when I went to turn on the dryer was...hit the button, my second thought was...no, abort, don't hit the button…my third thought was "what is that thumping noise? OMG, I've done her in." I emptied the dryer pushed the button again. Not sounding good at all. It was making the same sound as the hamster wheel with food in it, only with a little thump and rattle with every round. "OH! So that's how it ends!!" I thought. Good job Mom!!! I think I gave up hope there, proceeding to take the dryer apart just to see what I could to see.
My car was parked outside at that time and the garage had been sealed off. (Almost used the yellow crime tape) Diego and I got home late, quietly entered the garage, and looked around while listening for no less than an hour. Frustrated and gloomy, we trudged upstairs to push on through four pages of homework, front and back. Once that was out of the way Diego got ready for bed. I said, I'll go check again to see if I can surprise her. (With no internal hope at all)
WHO-HA! There she was, cute nose and whiskers a twitching as we both froze and locked eyes for less than a split second. Then like lightening, she shot across the floor darting under the dryer. I used a stick to scare her out from underneath, blocked her in the corner and called for Diego. He ran down the stairs and coeced her in my direction. On my second attempt, muttering under my breath, I scooped her up, tossed her into her cage, and snapped the door shut with a rush of satisfaction and a high five. OH YEAH! LOCK DOWN BABY!
Report on AWOL'S 4th secret mission: Project Spider Web. Intent: to cause a complete upheaval in the garage---Mission accomplished. To put things in order will no doubt take me countless hours. That will take place only after I have rousted out all the eight legged tenants, big and little. Then I’ll I be able to put my dryer back together, which, BTW, includes reassembling the lint vent that leads outside. The only casualties on this mission were spiders. I'm sure Miss Houdini is comfortably spinning on her wheel as I write this. (Or is she?) Her new code name while on missions is Bratty Rat. A Robo hamster...What the *!#> was I thinking!
As I started to put laundry away Diego lay back waiting to be tucked in. He commented on cruelty while reading about an animal that wears a shock collar. This sparked my comment... "Hey, maybe we can get one of those for AWOL". His immediate response was "Hell no!" I said "DID YOU just say Hell no?" He said "Yeah!" We laughed so hard, after which I said..."Honey, the thing about swearing is you have to know where, when and around who you can use words like that. I'm okay with that one since I deserved it, and we have had one heck of a day. But none of that in school, around your class mates, and older people, except Grandma of course. Why? Cuz she wrote the book on cursing!"
So there you have it, AWOL'S fourth adventure. Oh! And if you ever want to deep clean your house room by room, I have the perfect little companion to help you with your mission. She likes working nights and hardly eats a thing.
When my son Diego asked me for a dog I thought about it long and hard. I’d love to indulge him, but knowing how much attention and care a dog will need, kept me from saying yes. I have every reason to say I’d like to, since his father and I recently separated. There is a dog in our future, just not right now.
Next was the request for a hamster. Okay, I thought, I’m down with that, it’s small. So I mentioned this to his dad saying it would be fine to go out shopping for the new pet with “D” if he wanted to. The next day Diego left the pet shop, not with a hamster, but a bloody finger. He was very disappointed on many levels to say the least. The next few days were rough on Diego. He’s learning to ride a bike. Scrapes may be part of growing up but that doesn’t cushion the fall. Wanting to turn the week around for him I took him to buy a hamster, thinking… they can’t all be biters.
When we arrived at the store they were out of regular hamsters but they had one dwarf breed, a Roborovski, also called a Robo hamster. As we checked out with the hamster and her condo, the sales person asked, “Do you have a name for your new pet?”. Diego and I looked at each other and said no… I figured, like most pets, she would earn her name.
We all went to bed with the exception of the nocturnal one. Her condo has an exercise wheel, which she uses fanatically right around midnight. She likes to snack as she exercises, keeping spare food on the wheel, which rattles around as she spins. How can a critter so small create such a racket?
Next morning I couldn’t help myself, I just had to get her out to pet her. That lasted about 2 seconds as she leapt from my hands and then table to floor. She headed north towards the couch. Quick I thought barricade the room. I tore up the whole living room to no avail. Great, how am I going to break this news to “D” I thought. I peered into his room, and despite barricading the living room, I saw our robo pet bolting by Diego’s bed, heading south for the desk.
Diego started to wake up and I tried to explain the situation but was too busy to give all the details. She is twice as fast as she is cute, and she is very cute! Five minutes of trying to capture her and it seemed as if I was about to succeed. I strategically blocked off areas to make sure she didn’t get out of the room or into the most cluttered spaces of the room. Then I heard it… a little rustle in the big closet, which BTW was packed from top to bottom with “stuff”. I dug in, frantically tossing stuff to the side. The room was quickly transformed into a disaster zone. Finally, I scooped her up and said to Diego, “For now we’ll call her AWOL” Once I explained the term to Diego he said, “AWOL, I like it” So there you have it, that’s how she earned her name. AWOL is now on lock down, however, she gets an occasional supervised visit and is always able to exercise. Thanks to AWOL I cleaned our closets on my summer vacation.
