adventure!!!

First, a little back story.

Friday night a friend needed a place to crash before moving all his stuff to Philly. My hedgehog, Amelia, has a really noisy wheel, especially since it's a little wobbly right now, so I thought I'd remove it from her cage for the night (I choose to suffer every night rather than fix it, of course). I neglected to put the wheel back in the cage. Amelia lives in a 2x2 cage that is currently on the top of my dresser (away from Chai, my cat), and is at head height.

So last night I was exhausted after partying wildly all day (jk). So I went to bed at an unheard of hour: 10:30! wow. At 4:30 in the morning I woke up and roll over, but instead of falling back asleep, I hear the familiar squeak of Amelia's wheel. It takes a few minutes for my brain to register that I shouldn't be hearing her wheel, but when I do, my first thought is Chai must be being Chai and playing with it. He's a weird cat - you never know. So I sit up and squint into the darkness expecting to see his undefined blob next to the wheel. Instead, I see him a few feet from the wheel, yet the wheel continues to run.

My heart stops. My first thought (irrationally) was "RAT!". And then I thought, "that's silly - it's gotta be a mouse". However, I'm still freaking out internally and quite horrified at the possibility.

I take a deep breath and flip on the light. The wheel stops. Since it's facing the wall, I can't see what's inside.

Then I glance up at Amelia's cage. It's open. A realization dawns on me: it's most likely NOT an intruder. I feel an odd mixture of relief and horror mix over me. I creep out of bed, peer around the wheel, and there's Amelia, happy as a clam, inside her wheel.

Now, I always knew she loved her wheel. But apparently when faced with limitless freedom, she still is happy to run on her wheel. I am VERY fortunate that this is the case. And if I hadn't awoken at 4:30 am, most likely she would have hidden somewhere and I would have spent the entire day freaking out about it.

What else did I discover? That apparently her and Chai CAN co-exist peacefully. :) So, all-in-all, I'm very lucky that this turned out to be an amusing anecdote about my stupidity/ditziness rather than a sad missing/dead hedgehog experience.

I said to Meles (her nickname), "Did you have a little adventure?" and she sniffed the air happily and resumed her workout. I scooped her up (she was not happy) and plopped her back in her cage, pondering how she managed to survive the 4-foot fall. Phew.

So there you have it, the makings of a children's book "Hedgie and the 4-foot plunge". I just need an illustrator. :)