Damn you Aubrey

It's becoming a bit like Groundhog Day.
Aubrey is on the run. Yet again.

My husband and the kids were playing with him a few days back and they 'definitely put him back' and 'absolutely closed the cage'. If this is true, then Aubrey is indeed, rather legendary. He was able to use his teeny tiny little hamster paws to unhinge a shutting mechanism that my 4 year old can't manipulate. Either that, or he used the full weight of his brutish body to smash through the perspex side of the cage.

Or maybe they just left the cage open.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that we must be the crappest hamster parents. That we're neglectful and that Aubrey must be pretty desperate to make continued escape attempts.

But you'd be wrong.

Aubrey is much-loved. He gets Baby-Belle cheese treats and saucers of soya milk. He gets dried fruit and nuts and popcorn and Premium Hamster Chow. He gets love and free play and even trips to the garden.

And still, despite our very best efforts, he absconds. He seems to suffer from that not-so-uniquely human condition of believing that the grass is greener elsewhere. It might well be greener, but much like in life, it's also populated with all sorts of other hazards, in this case, hadedas and the neighbour's cat and a sprinkler system and the promise of summer thunderstorms.

Liam, who is 4, is not too bothered. He over-empathizes with needy people (a trait he inherited from his bleeding-heart mother), but he never formed much of a bond with the hamster. Ben (who is 2 in January) occasionally hoists himself onto a footstool, rattles the cage and says, 'Awww-bwwweee!!'

But that's it.

As for me, I developed a real affection for that rat variant - one that is quickly waning. I feel like he's using me for food and affection and that he takes me for granted. It's becoming a very unilateral relationship; a case of unrequited love; of biting the hand that feeds.

Maybe he's seeing someone else. The neighbour's cat (a real little slut). A rat from the Zoo across the road. Or maybe he's just an adventurer who needs the sun on his back and the wind in his fur.

Oh Aubrey. Come back little guy. There's no place like home.