Rhino Adventures

Many of you know my brother, McKay:

(That's him on the right--he was excited for dinner)

McKay has been fortunate enough to have Rhino as a pet. Meet Rhino:

Now, Rhino usually resides in McKay's room, in a marvelous cage with lots of twisties and tubies to run around in. However, Rhino apparently doesn't think the cage is so wonderful, because he is always looking for opportunities to get out of said cage and roam my parent's house.

On Monday, I was over at my parent's, helping make applesauce, and my mom and I were taking a break in the front room, when I heard a rather loud scraping/banging noise. I thought at first that it was someone bringing the dumpster in from the road, but I quickly realized two things: 1)We were alone--all of the kids were at school, and 2)the noise was coming from inside--to be specific, inside the couch!!

I looked at my Mom, a little panicked--"Do you have mice? Or rats? Because that noise is too big for a mouse to be making it!"

She just looked back at me for a minute, flabbergasted, and then started laughing. "No, but we do have a hamster!!"

We opened up the drawer in the couch that the noise was coming from, and sure enough, it was Rhino! There was a little piece of the metal railing inside the otherwise empty drawer, and he had been pushing it around, which was what was making the loud noise. I, for one, was relieved it wasn't some disease-ridden nasty rodent that was going to infect us all with rabies or lyme disease or something, but my mom was still nervous. "He bites. How can we get him out of there?" She looked around the front room, found someone's discarded sock to put over her hand (how's that for resourceful?), and picked him up.

Needless to say, Rhino was placed gently back in his cage, and McKay was happy to have his pet back.

And I was happy that my parents have hamsters, not rats.