dys· phem· is· tic Huh?

Dipsy the Sleep Deprived Gerbil is slowly becoming more neurotic as time goes by. We got her a new, colorful, split-level rodent cage two weeks ago that is a gerbil-ish version of those tubes that dangle from the ceiling at Chuck E Cheese, and she is much happier with it than she was with her old aquarium tank. But she recently started chewing on a foothold inside one of the plastic tubes that leads up to her penthouse. I'm sure plastic isn't good for gerbils, plus we don't want her tunneling out and making a break for it late some night, so we removed the tube and replaced it with a plug.

Now the little white fuzzball spends all her time digging vainly at the plug and hurling herself at the cage walls in a futile attempt to scamper up through the plastic ceiling into her penthouse. Right now I'm searching Google for an effective gerbil repellent to coat the inside of her tube with so we can replace it without fear of Dipsy gnawing it to powder. So far I've discovered that "Gerbil urine makes a fine rodent repellent" at a site dedicated to gerbil-based energy plants. I can testify from my own experience, though, that gerbil urine fails to repel gerbils.