The great escape

"I think there's something in here!" I loud-whispered to Seth around 1 in the morning.

Abruptly yanked out of his peaceful slumber, Seth jumped about a foot off the bed and exclaimed, "What?!"

"I think there's something in here. I heard it scratching in the corner. I think it's a hamster. I saw it."

"But the light is off."

"I saw it!"

Seth dutifully came around to my side of the bed. "Where?"

"Behind the boxes."

"If it's anything, it's probably a mouse."

He moved one box. There was nothing behind it. He moved another box.

Nothing behind it, either.

"I'll go downstairs and make sure Bidoof is fine."

"Sh! I hear it!"

Obviously skeptical, he ignored me and turned away to leave the bedroom when I said, "It's a hamster!"

"It's a hamster?"

"It's Bidoof!"

Seth returned to my side of the bed and stared most disbelievingly at our lovely pet hamster who had just come out from under our bed and was sitting on his hind legs in the corner of our bedroom.

"Hey, little buddy," Seth said after he had shaken off his stupor. He knelt down and picked Bidoof up.

Our cute hamster in a laundry basket. That's the only place I could corral him for a photo.

I heard Seth go downstairs, put the hamster back in his cage, then use copious amounts of packaging tape to seal the top compartment of the hamster's cage. The part with the broken latch. That the hamster had completely ignored for months, and we figured he would ignore for the rest of his existence.

Seth returned to bed, and we had a good laugh at the absurdity of the entire situation ("I was sure you were dreaming!" Seth told me), then realized what a journey our sweet little rodent pet had gone on during that early morning.

First, he had to lift the lid of his hideaway and climb out.

His hideaway at the top of his cage. Now with lots of packaging tape!

Then he had to drop down from the cage to the floor.

It's quite a drop from the shelf on the entertainment center to the ground.

Then he had to climb one set of stairs ...

Stairs leading from the family room (where the hamster cage is) to the living room.

... followed by another.

Stairs leading from the family room to the bedrooms upstairs.

Then he had to enter our bedroom and go to the far corner.

Our bedroom, with the far corner visible from the doorway.

And then he scrambled around the boxes I keep in the corner by my head of the bed. 

The boxes Seth moved to find nothing since the hamster had moved from the corner to under the bed while I was turned away.

Which is the unlikeliest place we figured he'd go. He could have ended up in the crawlspace, and we never would have seen him again. He could have ended up in one of the girl's rooms and had a heyday in there since none of them sleep light enough to have heard him ("Especially me," Rebekah commented since she removes her hearing aids before bed every night). He could have ended up in the mouse trap under the family room fireplace that is a mere 10 feet from his cage.

The mouse trap (and dust bunnies) under the fireplace.

We figure heaven must be watching out for the little guy, because instead of him going missing and causing a lot of heartache for his owners, he came straight to us and allowed us to pick him up and put him back. And since he's named for this guy:

Bidoof the Pokemon.

I guess we had our own little game of Pokemon Go in the wee hours of Thursday morning.