A Hamster Named Civic

The route in question — henceforth named Hamster Trap

I have a hamster named Civic. My girlfriend gave it to me as compensation for crashing my car — a 1976 Honda Civic. I can’t ride him to work, but he’s still pretty neato.

He likes to campus across the roof of his cage. He’ll hang in the middle for awhile, before dropping back down. If I leave his hatch open he escapes and runs under the hot water heater.

I was buildering a couple days ago with the regular crew: Lena, Laurin, Matt, Mark, and Jacqui. Laurin found a fun route where you foot-traverse across a 2″ ledge, reaching between 6′ 3″ blank sections with your arms. It’s a beyond the reach of most people, which means you have give it a quick little dynamic shuffle before falling. Catching the other side usually means barn-dooring and falling. It’s deceptively tricky.

At one point the route goes above a caged utility shed. Laurin fell on the cage, and the roof gave way. He fell about 10′ onto some tools and stuff. Unscathed, he jumped right back up, scaled the walls, across the roof, and out the hole. Then he ate some celery and shat on the floor.