A hedgehog, a spade, and a terrible life philosophy
Thursday, 12 March 2026
Virginia Fallon is a staff writer and columnist based in Wellington.
OPINION: Last night — or more accurately at some ungodly hour of this morning — a hedgehog wandered into my bedroom.
I discovered this because even on carpet hedgehogs are surprisingly noisy. There was snuffling, scrabbling and a sound like someone repeatedly crumpling a chip packet.
For a while I lay in the dark and did what I do best: nothing. Eventually I turned on the light and there it was.
Now, different people respond to unexpected wildlife in different ways. Some scream, some freeze, some leap onto furniture and some immediately turn murderous.
The way I respond, I’ve found, is to calmly get out of bed and plod off to get a spade from the garage.
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I should say here that I didn’t exactly know what I was going to do with the spade, only that I didn’t want to hurt - or be hurt by - the hedgehog. Maybe I was going to prod it out the door, or scoop it up and fling it into the dark.
But regardless, at that time of the morning you don’t really interrogate your decision-making, just commit to it. So off I went, stark naked, in search of garden tools, then returned just in time to see the hedgehog scurrying under the bed.
And here’s where things took the turn that reveals something quite important about my personality: I went back to sleep.
I did not attempt to retrieve the hedgehog. I didn’t crouch down and try to encourage it out. I did not move the bed or even relocate myself to the couch.
All I did was think “well that’s tomorrow’s problem”, turn off the light, and sleep like an enormous, procrastinating baby.
Unfortunately, the thing about going to sleep while there is a hedgehog under your bed is that when you wake up you have absolutely no idea where the hedgehog is.
Of course it might have left. Hedgehogs are independent creatures so perhaps it simply wandered back through whatever mysterious portal it used to get in.
But it also might not have. It might actually still be here, somewhere in the house.
Once you’re faced with the reasonable likelihood of a hedgehog being in your home, you start to see potential hedgehog locations everywhere: in the washing basket, behind the bookshelf, under the monstera.
I know two things about hedgehogs and neither are particularly comforting. Firstly, hedgehogs are extremely good at hiding. They’re small and pliable, and their entire evolutionary strategy is to roll into a ball and wedge themselves somewhere awkward.
Secondly, they’re nocturnal which means they only come out in the dark. Sick ones might be occasionally seen by day but this hedgehog is obviously in good health. I could tell by how quickly it moved.
What all this means is that the hedgehog could very well live here for quite some time before we meet again. Weeks could pass until I hear a rustle from the hallway or sense the subtle shifting of spikes beneath the furniture.
Worse, one night I may simply turn around and there it will be: The House Hedgehog blinking back at me.
And once again I will be faced with a decision. Not about the hedgehog but whether my long-standing approach to life’s unexpected issues might need revising.
Because while “that’s tomorrow’s problem” is a philosophy that has served me remarkably well, it does begin to show its weaknesses when tomorrow arrives and the problem may still be living in the cupboard.
But in the meantime I shall start keeping the spade somewhere a little closer to the bedroom. Possibly some pants as well.