battle balls
My cubemate Val and I decided to let loose the animals and see what happened. "Loose" in a loose sort of way; we put them in their little plastic bubbles and let them roll around. Gordito the chinchilla gets a ball about the size of a 4-square-sized cherry ball (from back in those elementary school days), Gabriel the evil-eyed hamster ("he's got red eyes. So help me God he has RED EYES!") gets a little-larger-than-a-cantaloupe-sized ball, and Black&Decker get a softball-sized (hot pink!) ball. On the floor and off they go. We get used to the constant thunking noises as they run into the walls, into our chairs or feet, and into each other. I was distracted watching the hamster and mice chase each other when I heard a funny metal-thunking sound. My body realized what it was before my head did, as I leapt out of my chair and into the back hall. And then came the inevitable: thunk thunk thunkthunkthunk CRASH! I got there just in time to see Gordo take a ride down the stairs, lid popped off and scattered, Gordo just sitting there in his fuzzy chinchilla way as Val and Fiona rushed up behind me. We brought him upstairs, put the lid on him, and shut the door firmly behind us. Meanwhile, we discovered that Black is just a little more exuberant than Decker, and I had to chase them down the hall into a VP's office, remove a very dizzy and tossed Decker from the ball, and direct Black back into his designated bump zone. Captain Red-Eyes seemed to be the only one behaving himself.

Ahh, the advantages of working for a pet-oriented company : )