The Great Hamster Caper

We spent this weekend visiting friends in Summit County (I'll post on that tomorrow), and my mom stayed at our house, as she sometimes does. She agreed to help us out by feeding Piper and bringing in the mail. Too bad when I showed her how to feed our little hamster I left the cage open. When Mom got home from work late Friday night, she heard a noise of something scraping on metal. She went to the boys' room to check on Piper, only to find the cage empty. After searching high and low, and even having my sister and brother-in-law come over with their dog (to catch the scent, you see), the hamster could not be found. 

Mom called me this morning to break the news. She purposely told me, because she was afraid of how Husband would take it - he's got a well-known attachment to Piper. Now I'm not particularly proud of this, but I completely fell apart when I found out about the MIA hamster. At first, it was the thought of telling the boys that she had escaped, but after a pretty good sob session, I realized that I had grown pretty attached to her myself. Who knew? I'm actually embarrassed to admit how important that little thing has become to me! And I thought Husband was the one with the attachment!

I dreaded coming into the house and telling the boys...bit my nails to the quick on our way down the mountain. At first, Kirby looked like he was going to cry, but the boys soon began discussing the adventures that Piper was probably having. We immediately began combing the house, but other than some little tootsie rolls she left in our shower (poor thing was thirsty!), we found no clues as to her whereabouts. Fortunately, Kirby had the wherewithal to begin opening kitchen cabinets. As he opened the cabinet with the pots and pans, he reeled backwards with his dramatic gag reflex and said "She must be in there, because it reeks!" Husband went to investigate and found our sweet little Piper, hungry and scared, at the bottom of our largest stock pot. The scraping metal my mom had heard was her trying to get out of the pot. With a little sponge bath, a lot of water and some treats, our little friend was ready to go. She still looks a little shell-shocked, but I'm sure some time in her nice clean cage with plenty of love will have her back to her old self in no time.

I feel particularly grateful for our friends Graham and Michell, who, when seeing how upset I was about our escapee, refrained from saying "Dude, it's a hamster.", even though I'm sure that's what they were thinking. Have I actually devoted an entire blog to our hamster? Clearly, I've arrived at a whole new place in life!