I was taking the rats over to my friend Robyn’s house to stay while I’m out of town this weekend. I’d cleaned their cage and bought them a nice new wooden play block (since their old one was pretty gnawed).
It’s a big hollow wooden cube, with holes on four sides. Trouble is, TWO of the sides (say, the North and South surfaces) have big holes, while the other two (East and West) have smaller holes. (The “Heaven” and “Earth” sides have no holes).
This means that while a big-ass rat could easily crawl through the block north to south (or vice versa), he couldn’t crawl east to west.
Still with me?
So usually my rats follow this logic, stick with the North-South route, and don’t get into trouble. Last night, however, MY dorky-ass rat (McCool) tries to enter from the north…
…and exit to the west.
And he gets stuck in the west hole (with his ass still hanging out the north hole).
Now, mind you, I’m on the highway when I notice this (at first I thought he was just hanging out like that, but then I surmised by the giant doughnut of fat that’s pushed up around his face that his head must be lodged), so I figure the best thing to do is get to my destination, where I can get him in the house and get him unstuck.
I started to worry, though, that he might asphyxiate in the meantime (plus his sister, Jones, is inconsiderately walking all over his head, since he can’t move), so there I am driving like a bat outta hell and imagining having to explain the situation to the Highway Patrol when they stopped me for going 90 in a 70 (which they didn’t).
Anyway, by the time I got to Robyn’s place, McCool had managed to get his little arms through the west hole as well (ass still hanging out the north)…
…and Robyn (upon whose Vet Tech expertise rested all of my hopes) wasn’t home! She’d left the door unlocked for me, however, so I went inside and got to work.
I succeeded in doing nothing but making him squeak and shit a lot, so I sat down on the couch, rat-and-block combo in my lap, and waited for her to get home.
She arrived with two friends, and NOBODY could get his little ass free (we pushed, we pulled… we even considered trying to saw the block apart with a steak knife, but decided against it), so we wound up going into the veterinary clinic where Robyn works and gassing the little sucker (should have seen us trying to hold the giant mask onto his little head while he wiggled and kicked) until he relaxed enough to think it was really groovy to have two people (by then the others had gone home) trying to unscrew him from a hole half the size of his body!
Luckily, all went well (and Robyn and I were able to laugh about it over the dinner I bought her as a Thank-You)…
…but the block went into the garbage.
Where are the mini-jaws-of-life when you need them?
The End.
I can just see my little chubbers get in that situation. They are so smart sometimes, but other times they are dumber than a bag of hammers. Rats are fun!