“Mom, uh, I need your help,” a little voice chirped from the living room.

I was sitting at my computer at the corner of the kitchen counter, my perch and work desk for when one of the kids is home sick, which was the case today. Rosie had a suspicious runny eye that required antibiotics, so we thought best to keep the infection quarantined at home, but otherwise, she felt perfectly fine, which was a problem. Because the girl was bored.

Rosie is the second born and doesn’t do solo playing very well and so after she was done bouncing the basketball all through the house, and then the football, she decided to go get her hamster for a little snuggle on the couch while she watched a show. I had forgotten about the un-caged rodent, and apparently so had she, until she felt it maneuver out of her hand and watched his little nub of a tail disappear into the cracks of the couch.

“What do you need?” I asked, barely looking up from my laptop.

“Uh, my hamster’s, uh, in the couch.”

I popped up, panicked.

“What do you MEAN he’s in the couch?” I responded as calmly as a mom possibly could when presented with the possibility of yet another missing hamster situation.

“I mean, I was holding him and then, well, I think he’s in the cushions…”

Slowly and surely, I removed the cushions from the couch, while directing Rosie to stand by, hoping to the rodent gods that Rocket would just be waiting in the corner to be rescued.

He wasn’t.

But do you know what was waiting for us under those couch cushions? Sixty hair ties, a half-eaten sucker, twenty-seven candy wrappers, a bouncy ball, a squishy frog, a half a cookie, a million crumbs, a couple coloring pages and a partridge in a pear tree. If the hamster was indeed loose, at least he could come back to the couch to for supplies and a buffet.

“Rosie, start searching everywhere!” I declared as I ran my hands along the edges of the couch searching for any cracks he might have descended into before tilting the piece of furniture on its side.

“Oh noooo!!!! I can’t do this again!!! I should have gotten a lizard,” my daughter wailed.

Turns out our couch is sealed up on the bottom and so there was still hope that Rocket was contained. I was in the process of tilting the couch on its side when my husband returned from chores and assessed the scene. I’ve never been so happy to see another adult, honestly.  And I swear, he didn’t say a word about any of it, because that’s his superpower—to keep the judgement of his family’s actions locked up for eternity so he can focus all his energy on problem-solving. I put my ear up to the couch to listen for signs of life. My husband got down on his hands and knees in the under-the-couch rubble and shined the flashlight through the semi-transparent mesh stapled on to the bottom of the couch. Rosie held her hands to her chest and whimpered “Oh, not again. Please, not again.”  I poked my right eye through the crack next to the arm rest and spotted the bandit.

“Get the carrots!” I whispered to her. “He’s hiding behind the arm, I think we can lure him out.”

Chad whipped out his multi-tool-plier, clearly made for emergencies exactly like this one, and started pulling the staples securing the mesh from the edges under the couch, I stood guard on the back side and, after one failed attempt, Rocket was returned via carrot sticks back into Rosie’s little hands.

“I think I’ll put him back now,” she declared with relief.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” I agreed.

And that’s just one way a day can be derailed around here. I swear, between the cows and horses, the lizard, dogs and cats, I think the hamster even has the goats beat in the drama department.

If you need me, I’ll be cleaning under all the furniture because, apparently my superpower isn’t keeping up with the vacuuming.