Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Oliver's Second Wind

Sometime after moving out of my parents house, it dawned on me that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted.  Some kids might take that to the extreme, but I just went and dyed my hair red.  When I got married, already bringing Suki to the marriage, Nick and I realized we could own pets!

I had always wanted a hamster.  Nick thought that would be too much of a hassle, but one day, whilst perusing Pet Smart, I found myself admiring the little furries.  I guess Nick found them irresistible too, because he started pointing out which ones he'd be willing to take home.  I still wanted a hamster, but Nick insisted a fancy mouse was a better idea.

They only had boy mice, but the little guy was pretty adorable, so along with a little cage ensamble, we took him home.  We decided to name him Oliver.

Oliver had a rough first few days because Suki thought we had brought her home a treat.  We had to keep his cage on a tall cabinet in the kitchen where she couldn't get to him, and harness her up when we wanted to play.  Along with the cage we bought a little play yard and treadmill for him which he loved to no end.  He would run on that silly treadmill all day and all night.  And when we got him a rat ball, Suki had a blast chasing him all over the house.  Ah, he was a good little pet.

But I felt bad for him, sitting alone day after day in his cage.  So I convinced Nick that he needed a friend.  So off to Pet Smart we went.  They were fresh out of mice.  So!  To Pet Co.....they had about 2 million.  And after making us feel like complete morons for buying a high priced "fancy" mouse (I guess they are all the same and only work about a buck), the little sales dude sold us two more little man mice.

Long story short.....they hated each other!  They got territorial and started spreading their smell all over, then they would keep up awake at night squeaking to no end fighting.  So we decided mice were too fical and stinky, the time for a hamster had come.

I felt badly, but Nick assured me they would be ok.  The next day, we put them in a little carrier and Nick released them onto BYU campus.  I was sure Oliver wouldn't last 10 minutes having become such a pansy house mouse, but the other two were still crazy and would be fine.  To cheer me up, Nick took me to Pet Co and we perused the collection of little rodents.  Then Nick saw the guinea pigs and fell in love with a cuddly little brown girl.  We couldn't resist, so home she came with us.  We had planned to reuse Oliver's cage, but obviously the guinea pig was too big.  So we also brought home a larger cage (20 gallon aquarium) and assorted guinea pig things.  After setting it all up, I looked over and saw the empty mouse cage.

"Nick, you know, we could have technically kept Oliver..." I said.  "Do you think maybe we could go look for him?"  And feeling horrible, we threw our coats back on, grabbed flashlights and drove to campus.  Nick took me to where he had released them, and we started looking, calling out his name and probably sounding like complete idiots.

"Wait," Nick said.  "I hear something."  Sure enough, we could both hear rustling in the bushes, and two seconds later, the little fancy mouse popped into view.  It had been 10 hours!  And he was still in the same spot!  Took us about half an hour to catch him, but once we had we took him home and promised never to abandon him again.


Oliver was with us for another couple months before passing on, but that has got to be one of the funniest pet experiences I have ever had.  What are the odds?


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