RANDOM STORIES - Hamster on the Loose

It's happened again. Our pet hamster is footloose and fancy free. Hamster number three that is. Number 1 was named Teddy. He was a Teddy Bear Hamster, known for their long hair. He escaped a number of times. He died a few years ago. He was just over two years old.

Number 2 was Kocoa Popcorn Hudson. She had a friendly temperament. The girls taught her to do tricks. We bought her last May. She got sick just before Christmas and didn't make it. That's when, after about a week of mourning, we bought number three. We call her Cornpop.

Late last night, when Jami woke up because she is suffering a bad cold, she felt impressed to check in on Cornpop. She was missing. So at 2 am Jami came into my room and sadly announced that she had somehow broken free. Groggily I climbed out of bed.

For the next hour and a half I searched all over, focusing on the crawlspace. Usually we track them down right away but it's been almost 20 hours now and still no hint as to where she is hiding. Maybe she didn't make it to the basement yet and is still in the living room, behind one of the wall units.

We have had some discussion on how to find her and for now we have a few of places where we have left food out. I reckon she will find at least one of these locations and by tomorrow, if we haven't seen her with our own eyes, at least we'll be able to tell she is still alive.

One trick I'm kind of looking forward to is sprinkling flour around the food sites. If she comes by we may be able to follow some nifty rodent tracks to her hiding place. Or maybe not. We'll keep you posted.