Note:  My four-year-old is now eleven, so this happened quite a while ago.

Every night, in her prayer, my four-year-old thanks the Lord for her little hamster. Me? I had no idea what I was in for when I breathed a sigh of relief that my husband had brought home a hamster instead of a dog. My relationship with the critters has been one of constant conflict--I could even say we have an ongoing war.

Part the First, or Rustlings in the Night

In the beginning, there were actually two hamsters. My daughters named them Tinki-Winki and Po, after the Teletubbies. Of course, I was desperately hoping they didn't have the same genders as their namesakes. The last thing I wanted was a lot of little hamsters. It turned out Tinki-Winki and Po were both female, which manifested itself in a rather unfortunate way: they started fighting. When they began to routinely draw blood in each other, we decided it was time for one of them to find another home. Since Po was unquestionably the favorite, as well as being the dominant one, Tinki-Winki went back to the pet shop.

Before Tinki-Winki's departure, however, both hamsters managed to share a nocturnal adventure (That it was nocturnal was hardly surprising; however, it was extremely unnerving for this Mama.) As I settled down in my rocking chair to give my baby a midnight feeding, I heard rustling sounds under the waterbed headboard. At first, I was confused. Then I decided it sounded like a rodent. Hoping there were no mice in our house, I went to the hamster habitat and noticed a piece had come apart, and the hamsters were gone. Nervously, I woke up my husband, telling him the hamsters had escaped. What did I want him to do about it and couldn't it wait until the morning, he demanded sleepily. (I thought it was obvious.) Finally, I convinced him to get up (I wasn't going to be able to sleep knowing there were rodents running around my house, and he wasn't going to be able to sleep if I wasn't . . .) We cornered Po beneath the waterbed headboard and Tinki-Winki in the bathroom. And I began a nightly ritual of checking the part which had come apart to make sure it was secure.

Part the Second, or The Specter of Po

Things went rather smoothly after Tinki-Winki left until our family returned from a relative's house after Thanksgiving. Our four-year-old daughter was excited to see her pet again and took her daddy with her to check on Po. My husband returned from her room with a chagrined look on his face and informed me that another part of the hamster habitat had come apart (this time something had actually broken) and Po was nowhere to be found. I had visions of finding chewed clothing or a dead hamster in my laundry, which was not a comforting thought. Even my husband thought it likely Po was dead somewhere, going that long without water, and tried to tell my daughter that Po may have gone away. I knew my skin would crawl as long as I didn't know where the hamster was, so I began a search, starting with the waterbed, since that was where we had found Po before.

I began by straightening up the pile of books and papers which is usually beside my bed (and which, I confess, I tended to leave there as a kind of alarm if any hamsters should try to crawl under my headboard in the middle of the night.) Then I looked in each of the drawers under the bed. I found tell-tale signs of a rodent presence in two of them, which encouraged me to search more thoroughly. I found some bits of plastic I was unfamiliar with and, upon inspection, realized they were bits of our waterbed liner. Frightened now, I examined the actual mattress. I discovered that, although the rodent had chewed through the liner and had tried to continue, chewing a hole in a portion of the sheet, she had been stopped when she encountered a hard plastic rod used to keep the sheets tucked. By some miracle, it seemed that had been enough to discourage her from continuing that course of action, and so disaster had been narrowly averted. I removed all the drawers from under the bed and peered underneath. Sure enough, I saw an unmoving ball of fur and called my husband in. He took a look and said, " Po's alive!" (She was looking at him.) If I had just let my husband try to capture Po himself, it would probably have taken a lot less time than it did. But with my help, we managed to chase Po back and forth under the waterbed until, at last, my husband captured her and took her back to her habitat. (Where she immediately had a long drink of water.)

Part the Third, or A Matter of Good Taste

Now, with Po safely inside her habitat (which I checked nightly before bed and sometimes in the middle of the night after feeding the baby), she found a new diversion. Despite having a lovely coconut shell on which to exercise her jaw and sharpen her teeth, she decided to try to chew a hole through the side of one of her plastic tunnels. The grating sound disturbed me at night (and sometimes my daughters, too.) With the specter of waterbed disaster looming before me, I became a little unnerved when I noticed after a couple of weeks she was making some headway. I tried blocking her access to her tunnels with the equipment provided as part of the habitat (usually used to block the access so the owner can rearrange things or remove parts for cleaning,) but she figured out how to pop them out of place. Irritated and worried, I complained to my husband, and he suggested I get some bitter-tasting spray used to train dogs not to chew on furniture. I resolved to do this the next day, but when Po began her activities that evening, I became so annoyed, I was moved to try something a little different. Remembering that my mother tried to break my sisters from sucking their thumbs by putting Tabasco sauce on them, I went to the kitchen, got the Tabasco, and applied it to the area Po had been chewing. I felt a kind of perverse satisfaction watching my dreaded enemy backpedal away from the area. (It was a silent night after that.)

I developed a new routine. After checking the hamster habitat before bed, I would locate the bitter spray and spritz a little on her favorite chewing location. I wonder very much if she tasted it at all, because sometimes I would still hear her begin to gnaw at it in the middle of the night. But when I got up, got the spray, and sprayed it on her chewing spot, the smell appeared to be enough to drive her away and send her looking for other activities. (Like running on her wheel, which is lubricated with petroleum jelly, quite quiet, and definitely on the approved list.)

Part the Fourth, or A Prayer Answered

Over time, she seemed to chew less on her tunnels, but my paranoia about her escaping remained. Finally, one night, while my husband was out of town, my worst fears seemed about to be realized. I woke up hearing rustling from the plastic bags lying around on my bedroom floor. (my hamster warning system—remember?) I awoke with the revolting feeling that something was crawling around in my room. When I went to check the hamster habitat, I noticed Po had managed to dislodge a "cap" over one of her exits and was nowhere to be found. By this time, I was nigh unto panic. I had never caught or even held this critter before; how on earth was I going to catch her without my husband to help me? (And I was further panicked by the thought she could, at this very moment, be chewing a hole in my waterbed.) Desperately, I began to pull out the drawers under the waterbed. But then, realizing I needed some help, I stopped, sat back on my knees, and offered up a short, fervent prayer aloud. (Something akin to, "Please help me catch that stupid hamster!")

I don’t think I have ever had a prayer answered so immediately. As soon as I stopped speaking, Po ran right in front of my knees. She even paused just beyond me, in front of my nightstand, so I could recover my wits and realize she was actually there. Then my hands flew down and grabbed her. I probably held her a little harder than necessary, but I was determined she was not going to get away.

With Po in my hands, I realized now I had another problem. I hadn’t taken the time to fix the habitat, and I wasn’t about to put myself in a situation where Po had the least chance of escaping. But where could I put Po while I "plugged the leak?" I wandered into the kitchen, where I spotted a large saucepan and lid. With the saucepan on the floor, where I could keep my foot on the lid, I fixed the habitat and sprayed the "cap" with the bitter spray so she wouldn’t be tempted to try her escapade again that night. The next morning, I reconfigured the habitat.

Part the Fifth, or The Ongoing Struggle

The next time we went on a trip out of town, I took the entire habitat and placed it in the bathtub. I was going to plug up the tub and fill up a moat, but my husband thought that a little extreme. I closed the bathroom door and pulled the rug under it to plug up the crack underneath. When I returned and found Po had not escaped from her habitat, I wanted to cheer.

We seem to have found the most escape-resistant configuration, and my bitter spray is waiting next to the hamster home in case of annoying chewing sounds. I’m not sure who is winning this war, but at the moment, I appear to be ahead.

Part the Sixth, or The Demise of Po (Written months after the original)

Po finally figured out how to dismantle just about her entire habitat. Each time she escaped, my daughter and I tracked her down, returned her to her habitat, and tied pieces of the habitat together, hoping it would be more secure. Even with my reinforcements, I found myself waking up several times in the night to identify the sounds of escape attempts and discourage them with the bitter spray.

My husband had become disenchanted with Po long before, when it became apparent I wasn't going to allow Po to run around the house, and my daughters had little interest in spending personal time with Po. Now, we talked about taking Po back to the store. In the mean time, he suggested I take the habitat outside at night, to allow me to sleep peacefully. (The nights here in the Southwest don't get cold enough in the late summer to cause a hamster any concern.)

Accordingly, I took the habitat outside, and slept peacefully. I returned the habitat inside during the day. Then the next morning, I forgot to take it inside. I passed by the habitat during the course of the day, and saw it was safely in the shade, so I didn't worry about it. Later in the day, I saw the sun had reached the cage, but it was in the late afternoon, and Po seemed happy enough, so I left it as it was.

The next morning, however, when my daughter and I went out to clean the habitat, we found Po unmoving. A couple of prods convinced me she had left her body. That little bit of sun must have been too much. My daughter took it very well, and alternated between saying Po had been her best friend and saying she didn't want any little pets again. When she laid down for her nap, I sat by myself and cried.

THE END