The Great Escape

About a month ago I had a lapse in judgement. At the time I thought, how bad could it really be? Well, I sure found out the answer to THAT question. It all started when my oldest started making his birthday wish  list. It was surprisingly short. At the top of the list circled and starred was the word GERBIL. This word has since been cursed many times in my household, with me being the primary cursor. My first instinct was, NO WAY am I having a little rat like rodent thing in my house. But then came the ammo of reasoning fired right at my heart and mind. "But, mom...........I don't want an ipod, a game system, a toy, just this, that is it". How could I defend that? Most kids his age are glued to a screen, phone, system, ipod, or even worse a dirt bike or gun. It seemed pretty harmless. I caved.

Everything was going really well, UNTIL last night. I had been gone several hours. I walked through the door and to my ultimate horror, I hear Coop yell, "NOSY IS GONE MOM! ( Nosy is the name of one of them. The other is Meep) I came in and saw the gaping hole in the cage that should have been secured wire. I admit it; I completely lost it. I was screaming and yelling, Marin joined me and the boys began running around in panic stricken terror.  Where could we even look? That critter had been on the loose for hours. I knew I would never sleep with the knowledge that there was the potential for that THING to be nibbling on my toes in the night. I immediately called my dad and asked if he had a mouse trap. This overheard conversation was met with shrieks and violent sobs by the boys. I could have cared less at the moment. All empathy was gone. If the only way we could locate this thing was to snap off its little head in a trap, so be it.

My hatred for rodents and pumped up adrenaline was immediately extinguished when Reg said, "Mom, I think we should say a prayer." I felt quite humiliated by that statement. Here I was resorting to violence and his first thought was to request divine intervention. He said the prayer; simple and to the point. After he finished, I had the immediate thought to search the living room. It wasn't 5 minutes until they spotted him under the couch. Marin and I blocked off the room and let the boys worry about how to capture Nosy.

After many failed attempts and a lot of disgusting skittering around, Coop piped up and said, "Mom, we said a prayer to find him, but not one to catch him." Good point. So Coop led us in prayer to move the rescue mission forward. Another miracle shortly followed when the perpetrator emerged and hopped right into his cage. Who knew that a faith promoting experience would involve a gerbil?

It was still hard to sleep. That critter kept finding its way into my dreams. I think I checked the cage about 50 times today to see if the door was shut. I ended the experience by uttering the threat that they would never own another pet as long as they lived if it escaped again. They promised vigilance. I'm sure we will laugh about it in a few years, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet.