Today, I was standing at the swimming pool talking to my friend when my middle daughter taps me on my shoulder while I was talking. She is my little 8 year old that continually looses her gerbils (read here and here for more gerbil updates).
She proceeds to tell me that last night (yes, last night) while showing her gerbils to my youngest daughter she forgot to close the cage door. And, the gerbils are missing.
I am standing at the pool. In my bathing suit. Everyone has been swimming for at least 30 minutes. She gets out of the pool and picks this moment to let me know the gerbils have been missing since last night.
So, I told my friend what the interruption was about… we laughed (if I didn’t laugh, I would cry) and I called my husband. He said he would go start the hunt.
I called him as we were leaving the pool and he said the cats were standing vigil at the bookcase, so most likely there was at least one gerbil under it.
When we got home we moved the bookcase out a bit and got out our two gerbil balls. We put one ball at both ends of the bookcase. Paprika was under there. It took about 10 minutes of waiting and she walked in to the ball. I deposited her back into her cage. She seemed quite happy to be home.
(Note: we are seasoned experts on catching missing gerbils and we have found that the gerbil balls are the quickest and easiest way to return a missing gerbil to it’s cage).
We couldn’t find Ginger.
I just sat on my daughter’s bed feeling both sad and annoyed. And, a little deflated. Would we find the other gerbil?
One of my cats sleeps behind the gerbil cage and she was laying there… so happy to have her entertainment back. By this time Paprika, the rescued gerbil, was already asleep when I saw the cat moving her ears and head around. She heard something and it was close.
I laid down on my stomach and moved some items and saw a pile of chewed wires.
The gerbil had to be close.
Then, Ginger walked out from the mess of demolished wires. I yelled for someone to hand me a gerbil ball. Ginger walked right into the ball and I put her back into the cage with Paprika.
I can’t believe my daughter’s timing. It is beyond me why it struck her to let me know the gerbils were missing.. the next day while at the pool.
I can’t believe we actually found the gerbils (yet again). And, I know we would never have found them this time (or the other times) without the help of our other pets.
We lost a video game and a DVD player today (those were the wires that were chewed) but the gerbils are back safe and sound.
Incredible (yet again).
the coffee club (and me) 