View From the Tenth Level

Monday, June 01, 2009

A couple of nights ago, I was in bed when I thought I heard a rustling noise coming from my wardrobe. Having dealt with rats in our house at one point, I was filled with a kind of panic and dread. Fortunately, the logical part of my mind took over and I remembered that we had closed off all rat-sized access to our home. It couldn't be a rat.

Last night, I was relaxing in the tub, when Dan came in and announced: "Promise you won't scream if I show you this."

I was thinking, if it's a big, hairy spider, all bets are off! "What is it?" I asked.

Dan leaned over and showed me his cupped hand. Caught between two fingers was a little tail, and attached to the tail was a little field mouse. It was no bigger than a ping pong ball and was soft and grey. If a mouse could have a confused look on its face, this mouse did. It sat in Dan's hand, staring off into space, seemingly unphased by being unceremoniously scooped up off the kitchen floor.

Dan explained that he had walked into the kitchen in time to see the mouse walking across the floor. He tried to grab it by the tail, but was unsuccessful. The mouse wasn't moving very fast, and Dan took a chance and just scooped it up in his hands. It made no attempt to escape. It didn't bite. It just sat there, wondering what was going to happen next.

I had a feeling that the mouse had probably found remnants of rat bait that may have been left over from the Great Rat War the year before, and I felt sorry for it. I didn't think it was well, as a wild mouse would have quickly run from view and not allowed itself to get picked up like that. It was either ill, or very old and slow.

"Poor little thing," I said. "Can you put it in the garden?" And that's just what Dan did.

So now we have a garden mouse.

posted by Melanie O. at 1:37 PM -

3 Comments:

At 4:14 PM, David said…

Awww de poor widdle mouse :-)
At 4:55 PM, Melanie O. said…

It was so cute, too. Too bad they chew everything and aren't house broken.
At 2:31 PM, Anthony said…

How cute. I hope the mouse enjoys it's remaining days in your garden.