Since I was on a blogging fast during most of January-March, there were many things which occurred that I did not get the chance to document through story. One of the major, life altering events (depending on how you look at it) was the escape of our hamster, Rhino. Early one Friday morning Leah called out to me for some help. Usually she just wants me to get her something so I wasn’t in a rush to respond until she said, “The hamster has escaped!” That got my attention. Upon entering our living room, the evidence was in favor of the hamster climbing the wall of his (or her) cage and popping off the “man hole” located on the top of the cage. After the jailbreak, Rhino made a three foot jump off of the table on which the cage sat. For the next couple days we speculated of the whereabouts of the hamster. Leah blamed our dog. I had a hunch that he was holed up in the couch. Both of us were wrong. Eight days later I was in the basement doing the laundry, like any properly trained husband, when I heard some rustling behind me. As I turned around I saw a little hamster head emerging from a cardboard box. I grabbed the laundry basket (because I don’t handle the hamster) and he gladly jumped in. The poor thing was exhausted and had obviously sprained his back left leg…probably from the initial jump. Needless to say, Leah was elated to see her rodent child. For the next two weeks, we did our best to nurse the hamster back to health and I am happy to say that he has made a full recovery.
The other day I discovered that Rhino had escaped to the basement through an air vent in our kids’ playroom. He then chewed a hole in the air duct, jumped onto the shelving, and survived eight days on our cold basement floor. Hang on…I think Survivorman is calling.
