The Midnight Wanderer

A few nights ago, I was awakened from a deep sleep to the now-familiar sound of scratching on the decorative pillows next to my side of the bed.

It was 3:00 a.m. For those of you who don't know this about me, I don't DO 3:00 a.m.

I knew immediately that the hamster had once again escaped his less-than-effective cage. By the time I fully woke up, got the light on and rolled out of bed, he was gone. He was gracious enough, however, to leave little poop trails around the bedroom and our bathroom so that I would know he had, in fact, graced us with his presence and that no, I wasn't dreaming. I did verify he was not in his cage - he'd popped the lid off. I then dragged a not-so-impressed husband out of bed. We armed ourselves with flashlights and proceeded to search everywhere for the little furball for the next 30 minutes. No luck.

We decided to let him roam until morning and headed back to bed. I, however, couldn't sleep because I kept having visions of him crawling into the furnace (right, mom and dad?), getting caught in one of our many mousetraps, or otherwise just curling up and dying somewhere that we wouldn't discover until the smell arrived.

I got up at 6:30 with Mark and resumed my search while he got ready for work. In going through the living room again, I happened to glance over at his cage.

Here's the wild part.

Get this.

He was curled up, sound asleep in his bed. In the cage. Lid still off.

At some point during the night, the little dude decided he'd had enough wandering and headed back home to bed. Of course.

I still cannot for the life of me figure out how he got back IN and wish like everything I could have seen that trick. The only way in was to climb up the side of the cage, and go in through the top - part of which is solid, slippery plastic. He's evidently one smart, agile little dude.

I told the boys when they got out of bed, and they just looked proud as punch. Like "well of course, mom, we have the coolest hamster EVER."

Who knew hamsters had personalities?