Adventures in Chinchilla-Sitting; or, the Least Fun to Have at Home
While Lint and Loopy are on vacation, I watch their menagerie! This is normally quite easy and fun: Mundi goes to Chez L2, pets kitties, coaxes kitties to eat, pets the kitties again, checks the chinchillas have food, water, hay, and sometimes dust for bathing, pets kitties, rinse and repeat twice a day until the ladies return.
But! Today I have discovered a terrifying thing: chinchillas can open their cage doors.
I like to bring breakfast or coffee over to give myself something to do while the kitties eat, and so I was just setting my breakfast sandwich down on the table after dishing out food for the fuzzballs when I heard a noise. It was the sound of little rodent teeth on plastic. If you've ever owned a rodent -- hamster, gerbil, whatever -- you know what this sounds like. So I fed the kitties to keep them calm and found Escapee 1 (Sif, I think) sitting in the tupperware cabinet. I popped her into a large container, put the lid on (cue adorable tiny fists of fury trying to get out of the fishbowl), and listened...still a chewing noise! Yet the rodent in my arms was not chewing anything! I realized pretty quickly that there was another one in the vicinity, but I couldn't locate her, so I return Sif to the cage (let's call it Asgard) and realize, fuck, I have to call Lint and Loopy, because I have no idea where the favorite hiding spots are in this new apartment.
They gave me good advice, and then Devious Kitteh vengeance-hairballed on the chinchilla containment barricade I built as I was talking with the ladies -- I had taken his food upstairs, you see, and he did not appreciate this, though he eventually did consent to being in the bathroom with his sister. Sister-cat, aka The Saint, did not alert me to Escapee 2's location, but rather...Escapee 2 (Narcissa) attempted to run downstairs to join Escapee 3, saw The Saint, pooped in fear, and ran back under a chair...major tactical error, for the human saw her. Anyway, 2 out 3 within 15 minutes, great!
It was the last success I had for over 2 hours.
Escapee 3, aka Loki, aka LOKI YOU POXY WHORE, aka "the chinchilla who nearly got speared and roasted, and only Mundi's vegetarianism and love for her cuteness spared her life", got under the cabinets. Now, this is both good and bad: good, because there is only one way in or out, and nothing toxic under there; bad, because it's nearly 7 feet of 3 inch clearance, and right next to the fridge. Not even enough space to get a broom under -- the angle is too sharp -- even with the fridge out of the way. I had to walk the fridge out from its corner and eel in behind, and then sweep out years of dirt, plug an access hole in the wall with an apron (sorry, Lint, I will wash it!), lay down another apron so I did not develop the worst of allergies upon contact, and then contort myself and attempt to jam various brooms (too long), umbrellas (too short) and mop handles (not long enough, but at least it went in) down a double channel, in an attempt to scare the little darling out. She'd stick her head out -- Loki recognizes me, I think, and fortunately I have been giving them raisins for the last few days -- and then dart back under before I could grab her or block the entrance to her lair.
It went like this:
Mundi: *taps a raisin on the floor*
Mundi: *waits*
Loki: *sticks nose out, gives Mundi hope*
Loki: *scrambles back due to Spider-Sense going off like mad*
Mundi: FUCKING HELL, RAT-PEAR, get your fuzzy ass back out here!
Loki: *chews defiantly on wooden beam*
Rinse and repeat for 2 hours. I attempted various set ups, including some highly devious arrangements that would probably have worked if I wanted to sit staring at the ass-end of Lint and Loopy's cabinets all day. I felt very much like Wiley E. Coyote or Elmer Fudd.
Finally, the maintenance woman arrives, and we MacGyver our way into extracting Loki by means of taking up the boards around the sink, which required more calls since she didn't have her tools with her, Loopy's drill batteries had no charge (Loopy, I am charging them for you!), and her toolkit is in another room entirely. Of course, rather than driving Loki toward the nice shadowy spot behind the fridge, where I have considerately set up her bath (with dust!) and many raisins and a few poxy chips she tried to eat as I was clearing stuff out, this drove her instead into the lap of the maintenance lady, who -- for the record -- does not like rodents ("Do these things bite? FUCK. Let me tell you about this escapee hamster from unit 3 next door, which we found in unit 1 behind the fridge..." [Spoiler: the hamster was fine, hadn't even been there a day.]). At all. So she's freaking, Loki is freaking, and thank God I was a champion goal-keeper in my youth, for I had to extract myself from the fridge area swiftly and lunge across the kitchen and scoop up the struggling and terrified Loki.
Then I used the advanced chill-wrangling skills I have learned while observing Lint and Loopy for years and...stuffed Loki into my skirt, drew up my knees, and snuggled her.
Why yes, did I mention that I'd been doing all this in a maxi sundress and sandals? I was! So Loki is calming, maintenance lady is calming (Mundi: "Did she bite you, are you ok?" Her: "I really hate rodents, oh god, thank god it didn't bite me!"), and I realize the only way to get Loki upstairs to her cage is to essentially milk-maid it and carry her up in my skirt. So, I'm all "Sorry, maintenance lady, I don't mean to flash you, but Imma just gonna return this criminal to jail" and suavely [read: really awkwardly, because JFC, I have some standards and flashing my panties at innocent parties while a South American rodent re-enacts Alien in my skirt is NOT part of my life plan] trot upstairs with a chinchilla looped up in my skirt. For the record, and since this is Loki, who is known to use projectile urine as a tactical strike, I did not get peed upon. Points to me!
Then I talked maintenance lady into taping and nailing up the point of entry, she moves the fridge over to cover that spot, all is well. She leaves, and I spend the next half hour sweeping and vacuuming and sponging up all the assorted dust, chinchilla shit, cat vomit / hairballs, etc. from our misadventure.
Total time: nearly 3 hours from start to finish. Time allotted initially: 30 minutes.
Tally:
3 chinchillas, returned to jail, and their cage is taped and padlocked shut; I graciously gave them dust baths, fresh hay, pellets, and a celebratory "don't be a fuckhead again" raisin.
2 cats, who got extra kibble for being so good and not breaking out of the bathroom while Mundi had her head under the cabinets and her butt wedged between the wall and the fridge
2 vomit / hairballs, from said cats, because goodness is a fleeting condition.
1 metric ton, chinchilla poop.
1 futon chair, reassembled post vacuuming.
3 piles, dust and bottlecaps, from underneath the fridge.
1 souvenir bottle opener from San Francisco, liberated from Loki and the fridge.
1 Mundi, who was only able to drink half her coffee, and is covered in dirt, plaster, cat fluids, chinchilla filth, and who had errands to run.
Then I went to the bank, and to check on the house of His Nibbs, who emailed after he left town to ask me to take in the mail and water their plant. Of course, it rained. So I treated myself to a late lunch at Panera, and a coffee, and went home to my cats, who greeted me by attempting to chew through the tape on my boxes.
Oh, yes, did I mention? I'm moving to Atlanta -- got a post doc at one of the universities! I'm moving in just over two weeks, holy fucking shit.
Moral of the story: eat chinchillas, because when you love them and fall for their cuteness, you may spend 3 hours attempting to extract one from under cabinets.
This entry was originally posted on a site that respects user privacy.
But! Today I have discovered a terrifying thing: chinchillas can open their cage doors.
I like to bring breakfast or coffee over to give myself something to do while the kitties eat, and so I was just setting my breakfast sandwich down on the table after dishing out food for the fuzzballs when I heard a noise. It was the sound of little rodent teeth on plastic. If you've ever owned a rodent -- hamster, gerbil, whatever -- you know what this sounds like. So I fed the kitties to keep them calm and found Escapee 1 (Sif, I think) sitting in the tupperware cabinet. I popped her into a large container, put the lid on (cue adorable tiny fists of fury trying to get out of the fishbowl), and listened...still a chewing noise! Yet the rodent in my arms was not chewing anything! I realized pretty quickly that there was another one in the vicinity, but I couldn't locate her, so I return Sif to the cage (let's call it Asgard) and realize, fuck, I have to call Lint and Loopy, because I have no idea where the favorite hiding spots are in this new apartment.
They gave me good advice, and then Devious Kitteh vengeance-hairballed on the chinchilla containment barricade I built as I was talking with the ladies -- I had taken his food upstairs, you see, and he did not appreciate this, though he eventually did consent to being in the bathroom with his sister. Sister-cat, aka The Saint, did not alert me to Escapee 2's location, but rather...Escapee 2 (Narcissa) attempted to run downstairs to join Escapee 3, saw The Saint, pooped in fear, and ran back under a chair...major tactical error, for the human saw her. Anyway, 2 out 3 within 15 minutes, great!
It was the last success I had for over 2 hours.
Escapee 3, aka Loki, aka LOKI YOU POXY WHORE, aka "the chinchilla who nearly got speared and roasted, and only Mundi's vegetarianism and love for her cuteness spared her life", got under the cabinets. Now, this is both good and bad: good, because there is only one way in or out, and nothing toxic under there; bad, because it's nearly 7 feet of 3 inch clearance, and right next to the fridge. Not even enough space to get a broom under -- the angle is too sharp -- even with the fridge out of the way. I had to walk the fridge out from its corner and eel in behind, and then sweep out years of dirt, plug an access hole in the wall with an apron (sorry, Lint, I will wash it!), lay down another apron so I did not develop the worst of allergies upon contact, and then contort myself and attempt to jam various brooms (too long), umbrellas (too short) and mop handles (not long enough, but at least it went in) down a double channel, in an attempt to scare the little darling out. She'd stick her head out -- Loki recognizes me, I think, and fortunately I have been giving them raisins for the last few days -- and then dart back under before I could grab her or block the entrance to her lair.
It went like this:
Mundi: *taps a raisin on the floor*
Mundi: *waits*
Loki: *sticks nose out, gives Mundi hope*
Loki: *scrambles back due to Spider-Sense going off like mad*
Mundi: FUCKING HELL, RAT-PEAR, get your fuzzy ass back out here!
Loki: *chews defiantly on wooden beam*
Rinse and repeat for 2 hours. I attempted various set ups, including some highly devious arrangements that would probably have worked if I wanted to sit staring at the ass-end of Lint and Loopy's cabinets all day. I felt very much like Wiley E. Coyote or Elmer Fudd.
Finally, the maintenance woman arrives, and we MacGyver our way into extracting Loki by means of taking up the boards around the sink, which required more calls since she didn't have her tools with her, Loopy's drill batteries had no charge (Loopy, I am charging them for you!), and her toolkit is in another room entirely. Of course, rather than driving Loki toward the nice shadowy spot behind the fridge, where I have considerately set up her bath (with dust!) and many raisins and a few poxy chips she tried to eat as I was clearing stuff out, this drove her instead into the lap of the maintenance lady, who -- for the record -- does not like rodents ("Do these things bite? FUCK. Let me tell you about this escapee hamster from unit 3 next door, which we found in unit 1 behind the fridge..." [Spoiler: the hamster was fine, hadn't even been there a day.]). At all. So she's freaking, Loki is freaking, and thank God I was a champion goal-keeper in my youth, for I had to extract myself from the fridge area swiftly and lunge across the kitchen and scoop up the struggling and terrified Loki.
Then I used the advanced chill-wrangling skills I have learned while observing Lint and Loopy for years and...stuffed Loki into my skirt, drew up my knees, and snuggled her.
Why yes, did I mention that I'd been doing all this in a maxi sundress and sandals? I was! So Loki is calming, maintenance lady is calming (Mundi: "Did she bite you, are you ok?" Her: "I really hate rodents, oh god, thank god it didn't bite me!"), and I realize the only way to get Loki upstairs to her cage is to essentially milk-maid it and carry her up in my skirt. So, I'm all "Sorry, maintenance lady, I don't mean to flash you, but Imma just gonna return this criminal to jail" and suavely [read: really awkwardly, because JFC, I have some standards and flashing my panties at innocent parties while a South American rodent re-enacts Alien in my skirt is NOT part of my life plan] trot upstairs with a chinchilla looped up in my skirt. For the record, and since this is Loki, who is known to use projectile urine as a tactical strike, I did not get peed upon. Points to me!
Then I talked maintenance lady into taping and nailing up the point of entry, she moves the fridge over to cover that spot, all is well. She leaves, and I spend the next half hour sweeping and vacuuming and sponging up all the assorted dust, chinchilla shit, cat vomit / hairballs, etc. from our misadventure.
Total time: nearly 3 hours from start to finish. Time allotted initially: 30 minutes.
Tally:
3 chinchillas, returned to jail, and their cage is taped and padlocked shut; I graciously gave them dust baths, fresh hay, pellets, and a celebratory "don't be a fuckhead again" raisin.
2 cats, who got extra kibble for being so good and not breaking out of the bathroom while Mundi had her head under the cabinets and her butt wedged between the wall and the fridge
2 vomit / hairballs, from said cats, because goodness is a fleeting condition.
1 metric ton, chinchilla poop.
1 futon chair, reassembled post vacuuming.
3 piles, dust and bottlecaps, from underneath the fridge.
1 souvenir bottle opener from San Francisco, liberated from Loki and the fridge.
1 Mundi, who was only able to drink half her coffee, and is covered in dirt, plaster, cat fluids, chinchilla filth, and who had errands to run.
Then I went to the bank, and to check on the house of His Nibbs, who emailed after he left town to ask me to take in the mail and water their plant. Of course, it rained. So I treated myself to a late lunch at Panera, and a coffee, and went home to my cats, who greeted me by attempting to chew through the tape on my boxes.
Oh, yes, did I mention? I'm moving to Atlanta -- got a post doc at one of the universities! I'm moving in just over two weeks, holy fucking shit.
Moral of the story: eat chinchillas, because when you love them and fall for their cuteness, you may spend 3 hours attempting to extract one from under cabinets.
This entry was originally posted on a site that respects user privacy.