A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE!

A Mouse! in the house?

I sat drinking my early morning mug of tea when I heard a slight
rustling sound under the table . After careful scrutiny I spied what appeared
to be the end of a mouse’s tail lying inside my shoe. My immediate reaction was
to macerate him with the vacant shoe. How dare he squat in my shoe, it’s not a
flaming mouse motel.

How did he get in?  I recalled opening the French windows to
put out the empty wine bottles the previous evening. He must have crept in
then. There’s plenty of danger for him outside.

Our neighbor has two cats.  We installed several electronic
gadgets in the back garden to  stop them pooping on the grass. It hasn’t
worked..They strut around the lawn with a disdainful air which seems to say
‘That’s no problem mate’. We had to concrete over the front lawn, they use it
now to stretch out and bask in the sunshine. Cats are one thing – but mice, the
wife will go berserk. My second reaction was to order a bundle of mouse traps
from EBay. He’s bound to have mates sniffing around.  I wouldn’t have
thought our place was desirable  for a mouse.

Babs is house proud. The  smell of  disinfectant and
other fragrances  nullify  the cooking odors. The whirring of the
vacuum cleaner (that drives me crazy). Dust particles,cobwebs and bad odors are
not permitted  in our house. This is no fit place for a mouse.

I put on my glasses and had a closer look,  I am a size nine
so he didn’t have a lot of room to move around. There was only about 12mm of
his tail sticking out. I recalled an incident in Croydon many years ago when we
took in foreign students. Babs was making a commotion in the kitchen. I
discovered her standing on a chair frantically pointing at the fridge.

The Egyptian student called Fuad, shouted ‘leave it to me’ . He
rushed upstairs to his room and reappeared with an air gun. I moved the fridge
and the mouse ran for cover. Fuad raised his gun and fired umpteen pellets into
the mouse. I recall thinking what a cruel bastard he is – the carcass 
made a right mess on the floor. He left me to clear it up. Babs wasn’t
impressed with the holes in the plaster where his aim had been wanting.

I don’t know whether mice have a mum and dad relationship with
their offspring but they would be distraught at the manner of his demise.

This mouse could be a distant relative looking to avenge his
cousins’ violent death.  I reckon he decided to shit in my shoe and make
life unpleasant for us..

As I sat sipping my tea with one eye focused on the protruding
tail. I pondered on his rights as a living being. He obviously didn’t come
under the European Human Rights Act-crazy as it is. The RSPCA probably afforded
some protection. But I needed a quick solution before Babs came down to
breakfast. There was no Fuad to call upon and he would have advanced to machine
gun status by now. Then I remembered reading about the harvest mouse being an
endangered species. I had a rare David Attenborough moment and decided he
needed protection. After all, he might be the last mouse on earth. and Jesus !
I would hate fingers pointing at me as the bastard responsible for the genocide
of the harvest mouse. That Greta girl and her entourage would give me the heavy
Trump treatment.

I was trying to figure out how I could get him out of the house
before  Babs came down to breakfast.

I settled on the brilliant idea of dropping my shoe in a tesco
bag. I would place it in the disused  blackbirds nest in the honeysuckle
bush.  I could keep an eye on him from the kitchen window,if he decided to
settle. I would sacrifice one shoe to give him some small comfort in his short
life span. My master plan proved more difficult than I imagined. I tripped over
the leg of the kitchen table and banged my head on the chair. The mouse escaped
and ran up my arm he was going crazy, and so was I. Luckily he fell straight
into the Tesco bag. If he were able to speak Kings English he would have been
saying ‘What the f*** is going on here.’

I heard Babs coming down the stairs and managed to put the shoe in
the nest before she came into the kitchen. I popped a nice little bit of cheese
into the shoe as a special treat.

‘I’ll put the kettle on’ I said as I squinted towards the
mouse’s  new home. There didn’t appear to be any activity but my size 9
shoe nestling in the blackbirds nest did look most odd.

‘Why are you hobbling around with one shoe?’ asked Babs.

‘Huh! I faked a short coughing bout and waved my arm towards my
armchair in a dismissive no problem sort of way.

Babs laid her hand on my shoulder and peering into my eyes said
‘Are you alright dear?’

‘Who me? I’m fine. Why do you ask?

‘ On my way down to breakfast I glanced out of the window and saw
you putting a shoe inside the honeysuckle bush.

why did you do that?’

‘Hmm-err- well there was a mou…’

 ‘A MOUSE ? IN THE HOUSE !  quick, call the council pest
control.’ 

 ‘No-no don’t panic,there’s no need for that, he’s on his
own, he’s an endangered species, he needs our protection.’

Protection ! my foot, he’s a pest and needs eliminating. Do you
know how often they breed in one year? The place will be swarming with mice. One
female can be responsible for 5000 mice in one year. They are ready to breed
six weeks after birth. I want that mouse dead!’

 ‘5000  mice, blimey that’s phenomenal-are you sure?

 I had no reason to doubt Babs figures, she’s a bit of a
walking encyclopedia and knows all about that sort of stuff.

 I stood looking at my shoe in the blackbirds nest and
realised it was an almost new shoe. I could have given him one of those crappy
Italian deck shoes. Come to think of it he could have had the pair and enjoyed
a double decker apartment.

 Now things were different. I wanted my shoe back. I felt
angry at the  prospect of all these mice bonking away in my shoe. All this
stuff about extinction. With those numbers it is unlikely.

 ‘I want that mouse dead’ yelled Babs.

 ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll fix the little bonking bastard.’

‘This should do the job’  lifting a heavy wooden mallet from
my toolbox.
‘A couple of bonks of this will straighten him out.

 The first thing I noticed the cheese had gone and there was
no sign of the mouse. Babs was watching me from the kitchen window so I
pretended to be killing  the mouse. There was nothing left of the birds
nest when I had finished. I went through the motions of cleaning blood off the
mallet on the grass.’

‘That’s him sorted’ I said.

 ‘Well done, good man ‘ she said, patting me on the back.

During the evening Babs thought she heard a rustling under the
sideboard.
I laughed ‘You are getting mouse mad and imagining things.’

That’s
the wind – I’ll put some draught excluder under the door, I meant to do it last
week. 
I casually put my shoes in the wardrobe.

.