I love to see what happens when I pull the plug on the tv and video games for the day. Griffin and Connor built a car for Cooper the hamster - literally built him inside of it. Poor hamster kept trying to squeeze his way out of the windows. Eventually I made Grif take the top off and let him out, but not before Cooper had gotten his head and one arm (is that what you call hamster front appendages? Or is it a leg?) stuck in a window. The entire Lego car crumbled around him, leaving only the window connected to his hamster torso. Happy to report that he was successfully freed shortly thereafter.

Cooper has only been with our family for a couple of months, and he has already provided some serious entertainment for our family. When Connor got Cooper, he got this colorful, hip cage that had what we called the Sky Lounge - the tube with the little house thing at the top. Well, it wasn't long before Cooper figured out how to pop open the top of the Sky Lounge and escape. We had two major events where he was out for over 24 hours and managed to escape the jaws of both the dog, Gus, and the cat, Ace. (Although...it's doubtful Gus would do anything but lick him and cuddle a little. Gus wouldn't harm a fly.)

The second escape was the longest, and we thought he was gone for good. We'd had the tears and everything, when Connor was convinced he wasn't coming back. Larry and I were desperately searching the house every chance we got, so that we could remove what we were certain would be a tiny hamster carcass before Connor saw it.

Then one night when I was sitting in bed reading, I saw a fuzzy black blur fly across my bedroom floor. Cooper was alive! I called Larry upstairs, and we got him cornered in our bathroom. He ran to our vanity, and disappeared underneath the cabinet.

Now, our house was built in 1986. That's pretty old for the East Valley. I'm not sure how many owners there were before us, but when we bought it 5 1/2 years ago, it was from a man who was in the midst of a nasty divorce who didn't even counter our offer. Anyway, since it's older, it has some dents and dings. Larry got down on the floor and noticed that there was a board missing that was allowing Cooper to climb under our vanity cabinets. He reached in (god bless him, I could never have stuck my hand somewhere that I couldn't see that had got knows what kind of critters and nastiness), and looked at me kind of funny. "Babe - I think I just found some magazines," he said.

We rescued Cooper from the vanity and got him safely shut in his cage, with some duct tape on the Sky Lounge. We returned to the vanity, and Larry pulled out three ancient - get this - swinger magazines. Like, swinger ads! Even better, they were clearly several years old. Was the divorcing Mormon who lived here before us a swinger? Or was it someone before him? The magazines were hilarious - serious ads for folks who wanted swinging partners. One was typed and pasted up, the way we used to do the newspaper back in high school.

It makes me wonder what else is hidden in the walls of our home. Just our luck that rather than a stash of cash, we find somebody's nudie mags. Larry and I are already cooking up what we plan to leave in there for the next owner to find, 20 years from now...