Lost and Found

Or in the recent case, just lost.  We have a lot of reptiles that eat crickets, so we purchase crickets in lots of 1500 which are emailed to us. Usually they come in a large box with some cardboard egg cartons inside as the crickets like to be in the egg spaces.  This time, they came in the large box, but the egg cartons were the 2 dozen size - the large size that doesn't easily fit into our 10 gallon tank where the crickets live.  Only thing, I didn't know this until I tipped the box to dump the crickets into the tank. I will mention that I did nothing wrong here - I expected them like normal and it isn't like you can open the box and look inside without all of the crickets escaping.  Needless to say, the egg cartons didn't really fit in the tank properly and as I tried frantically to dump the crickets into the small tank and put on the lid, crickets escaped.  The egg cartons were too big and the lid wouldn't fit properly and the cartons were too close to the top of the tank.   1500 crickets were escaping through holes in the lid, out of the box, out of the tank and onto me as well as all over the reptile room!  The closest reptiles got an extra amount og dinner that night as I tried to pick up crickets as they jumped all over the place and when I needed a place to "hold" the large egg cartons.  I finally managed to get crickets in the tank and remove most of the egg cartons and soak the last one with water so I could bend it, ensuring the lid actually fit.  Meanwhile, I had crickets under my sweatshirt and crawling all over me - argh.  In the midst of all of this, the phone rings.  I can't answer it obviously without loosing more crickets.  In the end I would guess I lost about 100 crickets to the house and we have been seeing crickets everywere since then, especially in the basement.  Which brings me to the conclusion of the saga, A short while after this, I was in the basement feeding the rest of the crew when 2 crickets were in my hair - they had fallen out of my sweatshit hood. 
Another recent lost and found story was near the end of the summer as we misplaced our sulcatta tortise.  Now, I know what you are thinking.  A tortise doesn't exactly move fast, so how could she get lost?  Well, thanks to Hawk the dog, we have to double lock our gate in the backyard as he can open it.  This summer Sulcatta spent it all outside wandering around and eating as she pleased.  You are now thinking that the dog has something to do with it?  Not really.  We had a guy over mowing the lawn and since the dogs were inside, he apparently left the gate wide open.  This was on a Sunday and we noticed her missing Sunday night.  Didn't worry too much since we didn't realize the gate had been open and she can find interesting places to hide for the night.  Monday comes and we don't see her so we spend some time looking for her to no avail.  We start to worry.  Tuesday comes around and Joel enlists a neighbor to help us look with the promise of beer if she is found. George knows everyone and everything in our neighborhood, so he goes off on a search.  He comes back with a location of the missing Sulcatta, about 2 blocks away.  She was currently in the front yard of a nice lady who had blocked her in with lawn chairs.  Once Joel went to collects the wondering devil, he heard the entire tale.  She had wondered down the street a few houses and ended up across the street in an alley where she was initially spotted.  From there she worked down the next block and back across the street. She was spotted by a few people, most not knowing what she exactly was and this is how George was able to track her progress until finally someone mentioned the nice lady who currently had her.  Phew, rescued and safe.  I will mention that she had to be pretty determined since she left a tasty lawn to walk down our blacktop driveway and then down the street before she came upon any more food!