Luxe and Sanity: Lost and Found

After almost a year, my seven year old daughter still has a hamster named Luxe.  

You just can't understand how surprised I am by this reality.  Luxe has been cuddled (squeezed),  played with (tortured), and handled regularly by a sweet seven year old girl (sometimes monster).   

Just a few weeks ago while Lily was playing (torturing) with Luxe, she called out:  "Mom!  Luxe doesn't like roller coasters!  But maybe she does a little."  

Yep.  And nope.  I don't have the specifics...

But man oh man, for all the times I've thought of having mercy on the animal and kindly handing her over to a more gentle soul, I'm always reminded of the depth of love that Lily has for this creature.  We had a few kids over for dinner one night, and I found some directions on Luxes cage that Lily had written for her friends:  

Please do not touch.  If you touch she might get out.  So DO NOT TOUCH.  

Luxe has escaped her cage a number of times longing, I'm confident, for a life beyond the hands of her handler; perhaps she's looking for a quieter, saner life... maybe one without roller coasters.   But through her tears of despair when Luxe has briefly escaped in the past, Lily has always managed to find the animal.  

Sorry, Luxe.

We traveled back from my grandpa's funeral this last weekend.  Exhausted, we trudged through the fourth airport of the weekend and made plans for a late night arrival back home that evening.

And exhaustion is what I blame for my free flowing tears over a text from home informing us that Luxe was lost.  She'd escaped and had been gone the entire day.  I had a moment walking through the airport when I actually asked myself:  Why, for the love of the world, are you crying over a hamster? Because exhaustion.  Because two funerals in a month.  Because I could visualize the end of my sanity.  But mostly...because Lily.

I knew that once Lily received the news, the last leg home would be filled with tears, drama, speeches, more tears, and perhaps even plans for another funeral service.  Because we've had a service for a pet before.  The goldfish had a service and burial.

Duh.

While walking through the airport, I called a friend to talk with her....about the hamster.  Listen, if you don't have a friend who will not slam the phone down when she realizes that the tears are flowing because of a lost hamster....well, you've just got to get one.  And if you don't have a friend who will actually GO TO YOUR HOUSE to look for said hamster....these kind are few and far between.  But they're rock star friends.  Everyone needs an "I will drop what I'm doing and will FIND that hamster for you" kind of friend.

Since the hamsters cage is upstairs, I assured my friend that the hamster would probably be upstairs looking for a new home...a safe and quiet space...without roller coasters.

But alas, the hamster was no where to be found.  My rockstar friend couldn't even find evidence of a lost rodent - no drippings, no chewing, no missing treats that were put out to lure Luxe in (though the dog enjoyed several along the way).  The hamster was just gone.

I couldn't blame Luxe for escaping.  I kind of felt excited for her ensuing adventure and the probability of a saner life without roller coasters and squeezes and moments like:  "Mom, look!  When you pull down her little lip you can see Luxes yellow teeth!"  But I also resented the hamster for the news I had to share with my seven year old.  The same seven year old that asked me at different points during the weekend:   "Do you think Luxe got food?  Do you think anyone played with Luxe?  Do you think Luxe got out?  Do you think Luxe misses me?  

Yes, no, no, and...um....not at all.  But I kept that last bit to myself.

My husband advised me to keep this newly found, and potentially devastating for our seven year old, information to myself until we arrived back in St. Louis.

But sometimes I do stupid things like not listen to my sane husband's advice.  And thank the Lord one of us is sane.  Thank goodness we were not both crying over hamsters.  For the love of tears and hamsters, with that thought... things could have been far worse...

So, I told her.  And her reaction did not go as I suspected.  It was far worse.  Through the sobs and the overly dramatic hand gestures, she said many things in a very loud voice in the middle of the airport:

Why would you tell me this?  Why couldn't you have waited until we were home to tell me this horrible thing?  

Because your dad is sane and I'm stupid.

Why on earth would she run away?  Where on this earth is she going to go?  

Because she's tortured.  And somewhere that does not give roller coaster rides to hamsters.

What if she is hurt or stuck or bleeding or electrocuted?  

Honestly, the electrocuted concern made me laugh a little.  I just picture these kinds of things and then I laugh.  It's only mildly disturbing.  

So, I tried to comfort her.  I tried to assure her that Luxe was OK and we were going to work very hard to find her when we got home.  "Lily, Luxe is not hurt or electrocuted."  

"What if her legs got cut off somehow?  How would she crawl back home?"  

I'm not even sure that the loss of limbs would make her go back to whence she came, but one never knows.  "Lily, Luxe is fine."  

"How do you know?  You're not God!  Only God knows all things."  

And so that was the end of that conversation.  And as predicted there were continued tears and anxiety the rest of the way home.

Once we landed we came up with a fast getaway plan, which Lily thought was for Luxes sake but which we knew was merely for our sanity's sake.  Our carry on bags had to be checked because of the small plane, so the kids and I walked quickly to the carousel.  We grabbed four of the five checked bags and then waited....and waited...and waited for the pink and purple Scooby-Doo suitcase which never came out.

Lily's suitcase didn't make it home.

I stomped my way over to the baggage office, smoke could have probably been seen coming from my head, and I encountered a line.  Fourteen people were ahead of me waiting to report loss luggage.

Aaaaand....loss of sanity officially occurred.

I had a proverbial temper tantrum in the line waiting to report that Scooby-Doo was missing.  I said, not under my breath in any way, shape, or form:  "This is why we pack in CARRY ON bags so that we can be allowed to CARRY ON our bags and not have to check our CARRY ON bags.  I will no longer be flying with an airline that says you can have CARRY ON bags but does not allow you to CARRY ON your BAG."  My son wondered who exactly I was talking to.

Whatever.

And my attitude became even more awesome when Lily started crying over all this extra time waiting that was making Luxe "even more lost," and my son started complaining that his iPad was "almost out of battery completely."  It was like I could momentarily identify with the hamster:  I needed to get out of there.  I needed to escape the chaos.  Could I actually hear the annoying squeaking of a hamster wheel?  I was losing it.  

If you have not experienced an adult tempter-tantrum before, they're ugly.  While they vary in form, mine included very loud huffing and puffing, louder than normal chastising of children for doing things like, oh, sitting and standing, and texting angry-faced emojis to people without explanation.

Yep.

But the tantrum escalated when I became the second person in line.  Because when I became the second person in line, a woman came and stood suspiciously to my side as though she might just attempt to jump in front of me in line.

There was a part of me that wanted her to cut in front of me; I was ready to *talk* with her about all the injustice in the world and all the reasons that a woman like her would feel the need to jump in the line in front of a woman like me - a woman who was exhausted, who had three children...and dying iPads.....and lost hamsters.

So when she actually took a step in front of me,  I had no qualms about putting my hand on her shoulder when I said these words:

"Um, Ma,am, I'm pretty sure you were BEHIND me in this line."  

I almost didn't recognize the immaturity of what was my voice.  "Um" and "Pretty sure?!"  I might as well have sprinkled in a few "Like whatever" and "This is totally unfair" because that would have fit my behavior.

The woman turned and looked at me with wide eyes....and then began speaking in a different language.  The man who was in front of me in line turned around and said in an appropriately stern voice:

"Excuse me!  This is my wife!  We just flew in from Indonesia and lost our luggage."  

Oh.

And so I responded responsibly and maturely:  I  looked down at my phone and began pretend texting someone.   I PRETEND TEXTED.  Citizen of the year right there, folks.

Good. Grief.

Once I was able to gather myself (and stop pretend texting), I pondered my behavior, considered the fact that lost Scooby-Doo and Luxe were just not the end of the world, and then imagined how nice it would be to crawl into a hole and briefly escape the chaos I had created around me.

I apologized profusely to the couple once I had declared Scooby-Doo missing and felt the sanity slowly begin to enter back in as I restrained myself from blaming my short fuse on our lost hamster.

It took Lily thirty minutes to find Luxe.  The hamster had made her way down three flights of stairs, gathering treats along the way, crawled into a closet, up a hamper, and had begun making a little home for herself in the basket filled with stuffed animals.  Talk about determination - and a really, really great plan.  Slowly but surely normalcy was settling in.

And look what arrived the next day:

Luxe:  

You almost made it.  

But let's face it...there are worse situations than little girl roller coasters (worse situations like having temper tantrums in airports and yelling at foreigners for standing next to their husbands in line).  We can't completely escape the chaos, so let's just embrace it and not lose our sanity by doing things like escaping cages and grabbing stranger's shoulders.  Keep your cool and realize, rodent, that it could always be worse. 

....Um, but for you maybe not....