Thursday, August 17, 2006

A matter of (rat) life and death

Brian and I both felt uneasy. You see, we had left to go camping on Sunday and had checked the house for the cat. Not seeing her we closed the door and went on our way. But neither of us were convinced that Violet was outside and we knew that she had been eyeing Peach, Chase's pet rat (whom I secretly love ... she's very social and fun). But we had convinced ourselves that all would be well when we returned - boy, were we wrong.

We walked in the house to see Peach's cage all over the floor. Her aquarium had shattered on the fall and the top portion of shelves and ramps was covered in glass and bedding debris. The good news is that Peach wasn't in the wreckage and we didn't see signs that she had become Violet's dinner. The bad news is that Peach was somewhere loose in our house. The worse news is that if we didn't find her the kids would be devestated.

Now Peach is a very social animal and just before we left to go camping we had been working on calling her. So I made the little click click noise with my tongue and starting searching the nearby furniture. She wasn't under the computer desk or the couch. She wasn't under the big chair or the shoe rack. I searched the blankets left on the floor and the backpack bin. I searched the pile of school supplies I had sitting against the wall and the tower of shoe boxes holding the kids new school shoes.

It was there that I found her, sticking her head out of the box with Tristan's new red and white tennies. She poked her head out, sniffed around (probably sniffing for that mean old putty tat) and when she noticed it was me she came right out to greet me. I was so thrilled and nearly cried with happiness.

The kids were all so happy that she was alive. She had a little scratch on her tail and she was very thirsty, but she is doing well.

We had to go buy a new cage (which we'll probably anchor to the wall) and we'll be on watch for that kitty prowling around. But all is well that ends well, right?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, good for the rat= rat 1 cat 0. I also like the information on the performances, sorry I could not be there. Love the blog!!!!

DADz

Linda said...

I'm glad the rat outsmarted the cat! I'm a cat lover, but hey, I'll give it up for a rat any day!

Just Say Julie said...

what a thing to come home too! glad all was well!