Blundering With a Mouse In the House.
Posted: Thursday, May 22, 2008
by Mike Fak
http://mikefak.com
I knew exactly what was wrong but I didn't say a word to my wife or son. Jackson, my ever faithful cat, had been spending a great deal of time sniffing the air around the console television in the TV room. My wife asked, "What do you think she smells under the set?" I replied that she probably caught the scent of a bug or something but I knew better but decided to keep my opinion to myself. Cats, especially Jackson, love to chase bugs so my false answer was enough for my wife.
Jackson had given up her sniffing and was slowly taking over the pillow, inch by inch as she always does when we bond on the floor in front of the tube.
As always I started nodding off when a tiny shadow came in front of my heavy eye lids. A baby mouse, no larger then a silver dollar was peeping out from under the right side of the TV. My fears were validated. I figured we had a mouse in the house and here it was. The little mouse seeing this monster in front of him, immediately darted back under the set and reappeared on the left hand side of the set and jumped back under the large console. I guess it was shocked to see I was still there or maybe with its little legs it had thought it had traveled a great distance and didn't expect to see the giant ogre still looking back at him.
Jackson, who had been sound asleep on two thirds of my pillow was up in a flash and banged her head on the set trying to go where only mice can go. She ran around the back and I could see all the cables and wires start to jiggle as she clawed in vein without claws to get at the tiny interloper.
Quietly I got up and closed the room's door. I didn't want to wake the family plus I wanted to trap the little bugger for trusty Jackson. Fat chance of either thing happening.
Jackson came around the front of the set with a frustrated look on her face and in cat-look language told me to pull the heavy set out so she could get the mouse. Following orders, I did pull the set away from the wall and that's when I saw a feat that makes me realize animals are athletically superior to man.
The tiny mouse took off at sixty-miles-per-hour across the room darting and weaving under chairs, couches and tables. It even flew up on the couch and had such speed it used the back of the sofa like a banked track as did Jackson.
Finally in a tumble Jackson pinned the critter in a corner and then she laid down in front of the mouse and the mouse did the same. Great I thought. "These two animals think this is a track event and no one is going to get eaten."
I figured it was just Jackson playing with a new live toy again and soon enough she would get tired and treat the mouse like just another Slim Jim that she likes so much. But that would not be the case. Jackson would touch the mouse who would then take off and the two of them would run all over the room until they both decided to stop again and visit with each other. I knew after half an hour of this nonsense that Jackson didn't have the killer instinct she pretended to have and if I wanted the mouse gone, I would have to do this myself.
Waiting for my chance, I had a small wastebasket in my hand and a stiff sheet of cardboard that I had torn off a box in the corner. Sure enough Jackson and the mouse called a timeout again with both of them resting this time on my pillow. That was too much for me and in a swift move that would have made me proud forty years ago; I dropped the wastebasket over the mouse and slid the cardboard under the basket.
The mouse was mine. Looking at Jackson I told her that was the way to catch a mouse but I could tell she was mad at me for taking away her new track buddy. Holding the basket and cardboard against my chest I opened the window screen and heave hoed the rascal out into the yard and slammed the screen shut before Jackson could follow.
Looking out at the mouse it didn't just scamper away. Instead it stopped in my now decimated garden and started checking out which of the plants left it was going to snack on. Jackson, attentive at the screen looked over at me and again in cat-look language asked me why the hell I threw her new buddy out the window.
I wondered too as the little mouse, with a piece of tomato plant in its mouth in mouse-look language said, "Goodbye sucker" and then ran across the yard.
I tried to get back to my game but I couldn't. What had happened in the TV room had been more athletic and exciting then what the high priced athletes were showing on the screen. Jackson left and went to bed. Her final look was a "Nice job knucklehead." I yelled back, "You're not a killer, you're a pussycat."
She never turned back
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