105 Ways to Give a Book

Oh, No

Ohmigod, the hamster escaped. The hamster that my third grader has wanted for two years and was finally old enough to get. The hamster that made it through a brief bout of “the runs” that can be fatal for hamsters, but survived perhaps due to my sheer need for her to be okay. This morning we found that she had gotten out of a less-than-perfectly closed skycap viewing area. She must have worked and worked on unscrewing that thing. But, to reference Clemency Pogue and the Hobgoblin Proxy, “There was a principle at work here, an equal and opposite reaction for every action. The jar [top] was unscrewed, and Kenn [I] was quite the opposite.”

I’m physically sick about this. (Yes, Kelly, my stomach lurched and hasn’t stopped yet.) I’ve set out my hamster traps. I’ve prayed to Saint Anthony (“Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost that needs to be found.”) and I’m not even Catholic. I’m planning on staying up tonight when these little guys are active to see if I can catch her then. In the meantime, I’m fighting my anxiety and sicky stomach and cleaning up every place I can to search for a little sleeping Honey hamster. The problem is that the place is a mess, and therefore there are tons of places a little hamster could hide, and that fact is just making me feel sicker and more anxious.

Please send me your good hamster-finding energy. And if you have any good tricks, pass them along.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

MR, I have been there done that. Hamster Wanda disappeared for a month, and must have been existing on cat food since she did not eat any of the other treats I had set out. I thought the cat ate her until I heard scrabbling in the walls, and so knew she was still around. It was blind luck that I was in the basement when she waddled out into the middle of the floor. Try to lure her with food, and shine a flashlight in nooks and crannies at night, maybe you will find her in the act at midnight. Good Luck!

Anonymous said...

Whenever my hamster would escape (often, in college--my suitmates boyfriend thought it was funny to loosen the doorways when I was away), I would make little piles of hamster food in places I thought a hamster would hide (in a corner behind a chair, under the edge of the bed, etc) and then get up in the night to check them. I don't advise using a flashlight, as those would scare my hamster. I just waited for my eyes to adjust and was ready with a clear cup to put over her for the catching.

Anonymous said...

Make sure it can get to water--this based on my sister the schoolteacher's dehydrated escapee. Also--maybe try putting out the hampster wheel. My daughter's had a wheel that squeaked, we made her take it out of the cage at night, one night I though she'd forgotten, but found the free hampster running round and round.

Alyssa F said...

Good luck! When our hampster escaped we tried to keep the doors closed, so whatever room she was in she stayed fairly contained in. It turned out she never left the room with the cage, and we were able to grab her when she got up from her nap that night.

Lady S. said...

Oh how miserable for you! I asked my BF, whose kids have hamsters, but he had nothing in the way of practical advice, other than what you've got already. Will be thinking intense 'You want to go back to your lovely cage' thoughts at her.

tanita✿davis said...

Oh, my dear. I lost my snake for six months, and I know that's no comfort at all... but when I was a kid and had hamsters, we really did just leave food out, and they always came back, the greedy little things.

Crossed fingers, lit candles, chants and prayers ascending...

Kelly said...

Oh, no, MR! Keep us updated!!

MotherReader said...

Thanks for the support. Really, really.