Monday, August 14, 2006

The Mouse

Today it was pouring rain, and as I was leaving to pick up the twins from preschool, I saw a little mouse running across the street. After the horror of earlier in the summer, (oh, our A/C broke and the technician took it apart to find a family of fricasseed mice that had been living in the unit box and must have chewed on a wire -yeah, I did say HORROR) I had to DO something. So, I chased that little, soaked mouse to the neighbor's lawn and trapped it in a plastic flower pot. Anyhow, the tip of its tail was sticking out, so I took it by the tail and lifted the little thing up...and there he hung, limp, dripping wet and not even struggling (like you'd expect):

Me:
Oh my God, did I accidentally KILL you?
Mouse: No, I'm good dude.
Me: Umm...then why are you just hanging limp like that? Shouldn't you be struggling to escape the maws of impending doom? What if I wanted to eat you?
Mouse: Oh well, you gotta go sometime. Besides, circle of life and all that.
Me: Wow, that's deep.
Mouse: No, not really, no. Say, have you seen my mommy? She lived in the A/C unit...

No, the mouse really didn't talk to me, but I DO think he thought he was dead meat, as mice are pretty much a staple food for most creatures. So I took the pitiful, resigned creature into the van and drove 10 mins out into the country to let him go. At every stoplight I would open the two plastic containers he was trapped between to let some more air in. His little nose would peek out, but he never tried to escape. When I reached the large wooded park, I gently released him into some shrubbery.

By then I was soaked through, wet and pitiful myself, not to mention that I was running late. But it was a great story to tell the kids. My daughter kept saying "look, I see a little mouse!" everywhere we went.

"I could not have slept tonight if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground." (Reply to friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to return a fledgling to its nest.) - Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States

7 Comments:

At 12:24 AM , Blogger Sandy Hatcher-Wallace said...

Franny...You are sooo sweet to relocate that little mouse to a safer environment...and to get it away from your house.

When I was younger & quicker I used to relocate snakes...people just hate snakes and will kill them whether they're poisonous or not.
The reason I say quicker is because I have been known to relocate poisonous snakes...Something I would no longer attempt.

 
At 8:53 AM , Blogger Smalltown RN said...

well I don't know about the poisinous snakes, but I don't mind snakes. Mice and rats I hate. They just remind of desease carrying creatures. Funny thing about that though, my girls when they were young had hamsters. For some reason I thought that was ok. But to see a mouse or rat in the open just turned my tummy. Thanks for sharing your story.

Found your site out by "motherkitty" Have a great day....cheers....

 
At 9:21 AM , Blogger Motherkitty said...

Danged blogger. Ate my comment!!! And, it was a really good one.

What I said was, you are such a good, sweet person. You kids will remember that you were kind to a poor wet, cute little mousy. Me, I would have yelled to husband to come take it out of the house. (I think we have a dessicated body behind the entertainment center right now because the cats had it trapped there and it couldn't get out. We also can't reach it, so there it sits.)

 
At 6:18 PM , Blogger Jellyhead said...

What a sweet story! I wonder why the mouse didn't struggle? (Maybe he could tell you were a friendly soul!)

 
At 10:40 PM , Blogger bornfool said...

You are a sweetie. At first I was amazed by how smart your little mousy friend was. The mice I talk to are seldome so erudite.

 
At 10:41 PM , Blogger bornfool said...

and they spell better (and proofread before publishing.

 
At 11:39 PM , Blogger Alipurr said...

man, this is a good post. Good for you saving that little mouse.

 

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