Houdini has done it again

I was walking to the bus-stop this morning when my mum called.

Puzzled, I picked up the call, wondering what was so important that she had to call me 3 minutes after I left the house.

ME: Hello?

MOM : 小慧！你的老鼠跑出来了！(Girl! Your hamster has come out!)

ME: Huh?!

MOM: 你忘记把老鼠笼的门关起来！(You forgot to close the hamsters' cage door!)

I have 5 hamsters at home, and they live in 3 cages (1 double storey) in the kitchen. 3 girls and 2 boys. All the girls are separated; as they fight (females are indeed more vicious). The boys are more tolerant of each other.

Mom described the escapee as “darker”. Hyper is darker than Chip the roommate. Like Houdini, Hyper has a passion for escape acts. He has been doing it since he was 2 months old.

This time, I was the assistant. I left the cage door open after feeding them. My mom doesn’t have the same fervor with the hamsters as the rest of the family. So I can only imagine the reaction on her face when confronted with an open cage door with only 1 hamster inside.

But it wasn’t the open cage door that caught her attention. She was bending down to pick up a pile of dirty laundry next to the cages, when she saw a black furry figure moving on top. Her immediate reaction was to drop everything and bolt.

Later, she realized the serious consequence if Hyper was not returned to the cage (he may try to jump down the pipe again; that’s another story). So very unwillingly, she grabbed the dirty towel with him inside, and threw him back into the cage.

My mom is pretty cool with the whole episode. She was so proud of herself as she reenacts the scene.

I guess all moms are the same. They claimed they don’t like your pet, but in the end, they worry about your pet more than you do.

I love my mom.