Stories and Fables and Cautionary Tales #2

Mice (Cute but Unwelcome)
Having no idea how they gain access into a home, I feel no responsibility for any rodent family with the bad luck to break in and enter ours.  The first of our tiny trespassers to be discovered was a mouse mother that evidently thought my laundry basket, temporarily filled with my sons' outgrown jeans and cotton shirts, was an ideal place to have her babies. Sometime either before or during delivery, the basket was transferred to my van where it stayed for a week.  I finally brought the basket to our the room in our church designated for clothing donations, lifted the first pile of clothing from the basket and nearly fell over as Mother Mouse jumped from the pile, landed at my feet and ran down the hall.  Of course there had to be about a dozen women there to witness. With one voice we shrieked as we have been created to do in the presence of mice. Mother Mouse kept on running, and her babies, discovered with the removal of the next pile of clothing, were quickly dispatched (translated "killed") by a woman who grew up on a farm and has no fear nor sympathy for micelings. And by the way; the charitable effort to donate used clothing was a complete bust because all the clothing in the basket had been shredded by Mother Mouse to make her nest.

A few days later I began to smell an unpleasant odor emitting somewhere around the landing of our staircase and feared that it could be a gas leak. I called the gas company, but the man who came to test the line found no issues there. He sniffed around for awhile and detected that the smell was strongest near a vent in the wall. Requesting a screwdriver, he removed the grating and announced his "find" interestingly: "Here he lay!" With a little coaxing (ok, begging) from me, he retrieved the remains of Father Mouse* and threw them (him) into the snow of our front yard.  In a matter of hours, our mice problem was solved, though the population of mice interestingly began to grow in our church building. I take no responsibility for this, however, because the mouse I released couldn't possibly have been pregnant when I did. And anyway, she should be safe in a church.

So what's the caution? No doubt many cautions could be derived from this tale, and I'll let you make your own. For my part, I didn't have had to handle any of the seven or so mice involved though I have to admit I'm not exactly sure how many mice were involved since, upon seeing the micelings, I went into shock and needed blankets. A glance was all that was needed to see that the babies, minutes before resting comfortably IN MY VAN, were almost developed enough to leave their cotton-jean nest. We never discovered one live mouse in the house, never set a trap, were not even aware of their presence until their demise, and yet somehow we succeeded in decimating the population anyway.  That is, except for the mother who for all time and eternity is doomed to search for lost babies she'll never find. But cautionary tales and morals are really for people since animals can't read. With that in mind, I'd suggest this moral: "Seeking warmth and comfort in strange places (none stranger than our place, I guarantee) may lead to your undoing."


*Although we can't know whether or not this unfortunate mouse was male or the father of the squished babies, I insist that this is the case. Otherwise, I have to accept the possibility that there may be another mouse in the house. That I cannot do.