If you have played The Sims 2 with the Pets expansion pack for very long, you know that toddler Sims will often fall asleep in the pet bed. Unfortunately, when I was playing last weekend, one of my toddlers became STUCK in the pet bed.

Connor fell asleep in the pet bed, and awoke with his "hygiene" need at critical level. He cried and cried, but would not get out of the bed. I sent various adult Sims over and instructed them to pick him up, bathe him, cuddle him, etc, but the action vanished as soon as it hit their queue.

At first, I just thought that Connor was pitching a temper tantrum. I tried buying a teddy bear and setting it beside the pet bed, to tempt him out. No dice! Then I tried clicking on the floor in front of the pet bed and instructing him to "Crawl Here." I even tried queuing up half a dozen "Crawl Here" requests, but after a moment in his queue, they all vanished.

Soon the issue started getting urgent, as his Hunger need slid into the red. I received a pop-up warning that if he didn't get fed, the social worker would come. I tried the moveObjects cheat, but Connor still couldn't be moved.

I realized that if he could just hang on a few more hours, he would be eligible to grow up into a child. Surely a child could be instructed to leave the pet bed, get some food, and take a shower? It was a race to the finish line - a race that I lost.

The social worker showed up just as the "Grow Up" action became available for Connor. I accidentally clicked to have him grow up into a child just as the social worker entered the lot. I have only had the social worker appear on single-child lots, and I didn't realize that she would take ALL of the children! The family icon for Connor disappeared (which meant that I was not able to control him) along with those of his sisters Clementine and Cassandra.

As the social worker carried little Clementine back to her van, I realized that Connor was, although a child now, still stuck in the pet bed. Worse, he seemed to be frozen facing the corner. It was all very "Blair Witch."

This was a disaster.

I exited the game without saving. I have a personal policy of not weaseling out of bad events this way, but in this case, the problem was caused by a glitch in the game.

This is the part where I remind you to back up your game frequently. I have a series of backups, and I create a new backup every time before I start playing. That way, if the worst happens, I can restore the game back to the previous gameplay session - or the one before that.

To back up your Sims, go to My Documents -> EA Games -> Select the "The Sims 2" folder -> Copy this folder and paste it somewhere else. I copy it over into the same directory, and burn all of my backups to disc every few weeks.

Luckily, the last time I had saved the game was BEFORE Connor fell asleep in the pet bed. The first thing I did was delete the pet bed. Sure, the family cat Adrienne has to sleep on the people beds, now. But better safe than sorry!