For Pete's Sake!!

Pete is our brown and white rat. She (yes, Pete is a female) has the dubious distinction of having the two largest tumors known to rat-kind on her right side.

She used to have a friend in her cage. Guess what her name was? Yep. You got it!! Her name was Repeat. Repeat went to the great Sewer in the Sky several months ago when she escaped her cage by chewing a hole in the wire lid and getting into something mysterious in our basement. That was back when they belonged to D3. Since that time, Pete has been handed down to C. as her new/old pet. (Convenient...right before it dies from acute tumor-itis. D3 is probably just protecting himself from the inevitable sorrow that is coming.)

So now Pete has a new home upstairs across from my bedroom. As I type, Pete has woken up for the night. Rats are so very nocturnal and it is all of 10:27. She is standing on top of her house and she is proceeding to gnaw with extraordinary energy on the packing tape that is covering the old hole that was Repeats escape hatch in the wire lid.

I am debating my choices.

A. Do nothing and risk having a be-tumored rat loose in our house come tomorrow morning.

B. Release Pete to the great outdoors and allow her to scamper (hobble, really, with those horrible tumors) through the wild grass that grows just north of our house.

C. Figure out some way to keep her first and foremost IN the cage as well as quiet for the rest of our night tonight. (The gnawing is wearing on me even as I type this sentence. Maybe "quiet" actually is first and foremost in priority.)

Option A really seems foolish as I think about it. I have no desire to do a search and rescue tomorrow morning for the rat, and she might die somewhere hidden and that would really stink. Literally.

(Oh!! No!! The lid is starting to give way. Ok, it is back on now.)

Option B, while tempting, seems a tad harsh. If the owls didn't get her, my cat would. Hidey-cat would probably not respect the fact that Pete is a fellow pet in the H. household. In fact, she would probably leave her on our front doorstep. OOOOOHHH!!!! And even more importantly, C. would be heartbroken to find her missing. Which is bound to happen soon enough at this rate of gnawing going on, but I would rather not have quite that much to do with it.

(FOR HEAVENS SAKE PETE, QUIT GNAWING!!!!!!!)

Option C...Ok! I think this is it. The cage is going in the utility room immediately as the lid really is starting to give way and I have to find something better then packing tape to secure it.

Now where is the duct tape when I need it?!