Vendetta's Capture

Friday night I fell asleep on the couch while watching TV. At some point during my late-evening nap, the cat jumped on my stomach and started kneading me with her half-sharpened claws and heaviness. She weighs 12 pounds and she can really weigh a person down when she's looking for a comfortable place to rest. Later, when I woke up again, I groggily got to my feet and saw that she was crouching on the floor next to the bottom of the couch, in attack mode, and pawing at the bottom edges of the upholstery at the bottom of the couch. I wondered if she was playing with the hamster Vendetta, who had escaped from her cage earlier that morning. I thought this might be my chance to return the wild pet to its proper resting place and maybe even achieve a minor hero status for a few minutes with the other members of the household. I realized if I had to chase it around, I might never get back to the restful sleep I had on the couch. At any rate, I moved the couch back and forth and spotted the hamster hiding underneath, going along with the movements of the couch. After about the fifth time I moved the couch, and, after trapping the cat in the bathroom, the hamster ran out. I spotted Vendetta running behind the couch. "This is my chance! It could be my only chance!" I thought eagerly. My hands pounced on her body, but she did a dive down the stairs, beneath and beside the living room floor. I heard a "clunk" as it landed on the stairs about four or five feet below. I ran around and down the stairs, and couldn't see Vendetta anywhere. I looked all around the barren stairs. Nothing. I went further down the split-level levels, examining the bathroom floor and family room floor below. I checked under the downstairs couch. Nothing. I checked under all the furniture. Where could a hamster have gone after falling down the stairs in about 30 seconds? my groggy brain wondered. I examined the shoes by the front door, and Vendetta was peeking at me with the protection of about 15 pairs of shoes all around her in a big mountain fortress. I formulated a plan to trap her inside one of my big shoes and run her back into her cage. After about 10 tries of me moving shoes around to get to her, she ran toward me, past me, and to the wall, where she was trapped. I tried to get her to run into my shoe a few times, but she resisted. Finally she had no other choice. She had to enter my Clarks. I put my hand over the open top and bolted up the stairs and into her room, telling her, "don't move." She ran into her cage where I deposited her, and she immediately ran to her water bottle and gulped away for awhile. Ahh ... victory ... now I could go to bed. It took about an hour to settle down, but I did it. The cat got to come out of the bathroom. She sniffed around for awhile and checked back under the couch.