Saturday, April 4, 2009

Missing In Action

I love the amount of drama two little girls can create in one household on an otherwise peaceful Saturday morning. This morning I was quietly working on the computer and Tim was outside cleaning out the car. The girls, both being the daddy's girls that they are, were outside as well. It wasn't long before a teary-eyed Maia flew through the door to announce that Mr. Pennypacker, the guinea pig, was under the deck with a cat. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, but apparently Ainsley took Mr. Pennypacker outside with her and set him down while she went on to do other things. She soon realized that Mr. P. did not stay in the place where she set him (surprise!), and he had ventured into the dark space beneath the deck.
The trauma, however, began when the girls realized that there is a cat who also likes to hang out under there. Now, I don't know what a cat would do with a guinea pig, but the girls did not want to find out. They quickly recruited Tim to help in the recovery. When preliminary efforts did not produce results, Tim resorted to using the hose to "flush" him out. When I went outside, Tim was lying on his stomach half-way under the deck, spraying the hose to the far corners of the space beneath the deck. He was getting frustrated because the water was not much of a deterent at first, and Mr. Pennypacker ran through the stream of water several times. He stayed at the back of the crawlspace, a space too small for Tim to crawl back into but too dark for either of the girls to volunteer their support.

Eventually, a very wet, bedragled looking Mr. Pennypacker emerged at the edge of the deck and Maia scooped him up. He was shivering and filthy, but Maia and Ainsley both breathed a sigh of relief now that they had him in their little arms.
We took poor Mr. P. inside for a bath and some TLC. He usually doesn't care for a bath in the sink, but this time he didn't seem to mind much.

After his bath, Ainsley gently wrapped a still-shivering Mr. Pennypacker in a towel and took him to the couch. Together, they watched Monster House, and Maia brought him pieces of green pepper, celery, and carrot to munch on.

In a couple of hours he was as good as new. Both girls have agreed that Mr. Pennypacker will not be making any unsupervised trips outside anytime soon!