Fievel goes "WEEEeeee!"

The other day I decided to work from home. I am officing out of two locations right now, and to avoid driving across town to one, to only drive across town to another later in the day I had the novel idea of working from home in the morning then only traveling once for my afternoon meetings.





But I should back up this narrative. Sometime over the winter I was preoccupied with the notion that we had a mouse or mice in our house. I had seen nothing. No droppings, no nesting materials, no little furry balls of darkness scampering into the darkness. The only thing I had seen was my cats staring under the oven. Not in the oven, but under it. The two of them. Like the creepy twins from The Shining..."Come and play with us Mousey! Forever...and ever...and ever!"


Animals staring into corners is creepy. But I also know my two animals. The brightest bulbs they are not, but still it gave me pause and convinced me enough that anytime one of them started playing with a toy mouse, ball of tinfoil, or gum wrapper on the floor it was enough for me to go fetal and scream "MOUSE!"

Look - I know mice are harmless. Of all the creepy crawlies they worry me the least, but you can't tell me that when you see one, or think you see one you picture their tiny little bodies shooting up your pant leg...tell me the thought of their cold little paws making a b-line for your crotch doesn't make you want to climb on the table?

Actually my uncle Frank had a field mouse run up his pant leg once...it is possible. It's traumatized him for life. Just like my uncle Bill is terrified of spiders. No. One did not run up his pant leg. My dad trapped a barn spider in a Silly Putty egg and gave it to him and when he opened it the spider ran up his face. And while neither of these things have happened to me personally it doesn't matter. I tuck my feet underneath me and roll into a ball like a Popple because no mouse is running up my pant leg and no bat is getting stuck in my hair. Not on my watch.

Invariably, I was always wrong. I had become the girl who cried mouse. We got a live trap, and put it in the kitchen. Weeks passed. Nothing. I was quickly feeling like an idiot.

Until one night this spring while Gabe and I were watching a horror movie in bed - and Copcar comes in walking funny...he drops something and stares at it.

"He's got a mouse!!"

We flip on the lights and sure enough -- he actually has a mouse. Not a toy - no bottle cap, but a furry little bugger.

The evening ended with me fetal on the bed, laughing my ass off as Gabe tried in vain to capture the mouse. The cats actually got bored halfway through and joined me on the bed. No killer instinct with these two.

We don't know where it went that night but somehow it escaped.

Later that week Gabe called me very triumphant that he had caught the mouse. He trapped him in a garbage can.

"That's great honey! What are you going to do with him?"

"Oh it's done"

"You flung him into the swamp?"

"No"

"..."

"I took a brick and I squashed him"

"..."

"Hello?"

I know mice are gross and carry disease and poop in your house and chew through your stuff and are abundant beyond count. I know I scream when I see one because I know it's going to go up my pant leg. But I also know that mice dance on the steamboat to America, and get lost from their parents, and never say never again.

"You squashed him?"

"Well yeah, he'd just get back in the house if I let him go."

"Yeah...I know that" said in my best whine, "but you could just tell me you released him into the swamp and he went and he found his immigrant family."

"Nope I squashed him."

"Look - you're not hearing me. In the future, you're going to tell me he ran off into the woods skipping...I don't care what actually happens, but you tell me something different..."

"Yeah, but I'm not going to do that - I'm going to ki--"

"NO YOU LISTEN TO ME! YOU RELEASED HIM INTO THE WOODS AND HE'S FINE!"

"Ugh...sure."

I know. I'm a hypocrite. I eat meat, I rail against idiot animal rights activists who free lobsters, and I would have no qualms about running over a snake with a Snapper. But for whatever reason, mice get to me. I blame Disney propaganda.

So back to last Thursday.

It's 8 a.m. I set my laptop on my desk, I log into our VPN service and sit back to start working.

I hear this squeak noise. It's like the squeak noise of mice in cartoons.

The girl who cries mouse thinks - huh, that sure sounds like mice.

I swivel my head around and lean back in my chair.

Silence.

Must be my imagination.

Five minutes later I hear it again. Ok, this has got to me my chair? I move - it stops. I continue to work - squeak squeak...

Ok this is ridiculous! It sounds like it's right behind me.

I swivel my chair and there on the bookcase - is a mouse. A tiny little ball of gray fuzz. She doesn't run, she just sits there and freezes.

Oh crap!

I have no idea what to do. So I do what I always do in tense situations with a problem that needs to be solved. Pretend like nothing is happening.

I tuck my feet under me to keep them off the floor so no mice can run across them and go back to answering my e-mails.

*squeak squeak*

Goddamnit!!

I stand up quick - and it doesn't even move. It's just perched itself on the wireless router and is chillaxin.

I figure, I have two cats. I will go get my cats and let nature take it's course.

I step into the hallway only to find Goofus and Doofus chasing a mouse down the hallway towards me.

The mouse sees me. The cat sees me. The mouse makes a quick dart into the bathroom downstairs. My cat meows excitedly as if to say - "DUDE! Did you see that?! It's a mouse! I'm totally going to get it for you!" And he then ran past the bathroom into the laundry room because he thinks that's where it went.

I facepalmed myself for my little special cat. The fat orange one just looked at me as if to say, "Yeah I'm mildly curious - but we both know I haven't got the stamina to actually catch anything except a nap."

I pop my head back into the office and look -- my mouse is still on the router...that means there are two mice in my house.



I pace a little between the bathroom and the office...I am getting so much work done now. I keep checking on office mouse who is just settling in with a mochachino on the router and is making no plans to bugger off anytime soon.

I go in the bathroom. Copcar follows me - I rip back the shower curtain, I look behind the toilet, I rattle the shelving unit -- no mouse. Copcar runs back into the laundry room as if to say, "No dummy! It's in here. Trust me!"

Whatever. I have work to do. I don't have time for this.

Mochachino is just going to chill behind me while I work then. So I set to it.

Looking behind me every five minutes. She's still just sitting there. I pause to go get a soda and see Beef staring underneath the entertainment center.

Great - it's moved...not my problem...gotta get work done...

I go back to the office. Mouse has not moved. I work some more. I then hear some more high pitched squeaking and the vertical blinds being attacked.

Ok - it's on! I will just have to pick up a corpse and fling it into the garbage in a few minutes. My stupid cat has finally found his killer instinct.

I rush into the family room and find the Beef as spectator to Copcar flinging the mouse back and forth between the total gym and the curtains, a quick chase along the patio door, then back to the fireplace...

"Get him Cop!" I yell.

Which distracts the mighty hunter who meows at me and starts walking away...

"NO! Kill!!"

He stops. Sits down and looks at the mouse who is now up against the curtains again. Panting and just sitting on his hind legs.

I step closer.

Cop gives a push with his paw, and I shit you not - the mouse goes all Jackie Chan and does a round house flip off the wall and bitch slaps Copcar in the face - who shakes his head like, "Wtf!"

I get the brilliant idea - I know when they run past the patio I'll open the door, surely the mouse will run into freedom.

I open the patio door - the alarm sounds - I close the patio door - I run upstairs and disable the alarm.

I re-open the patio door, Copcar runs to the door saying "YAY! OUTSIDE!" the mouse stays put in the curtains.

I shut the door.

I open the door just far enough for a mouse to get out - but not a cat. My cat shoves his arm through the door and smashes his face into the crack of door to shove it open still saying..."Ouuuttttsiiiidddeeeeee!!!" while he pushes.

"NO! Damnit!"

I shut the door. I pick up the cat. I plop him in front of the mouse. The cat walks away and goes back to the patio door. Looks outside, looks at me, meows "OUTSIDE!"

"Goddamnit!"

I guess I have to do this myself. Although what I am supposed to do, I have no idea.

I grab a bowl from upstairs. I'm not sure what to do with this but what the hell.

I run back downstairs - the mouse is still where I left him. I plop the bowl over him. He didn't even fight or try to get out of the way. At this point I think the mouse was thinking "Thank you lord jeebus for the paladin bubble!"

Now with him under glass, a nice clear pyrex bowl - the cat has interest again.

"OH BOY! What did you get me?! A SNOWGLOBE! AWESOME!! I ALWAYS WANTED ONE!"

And he proceeds to dig at the sides of the bowl in a "Gimme gimme gimme" fashion.

"Oh hell no, you were supposed to leave me a corpse, now I don't know what to do!"

So Copcar and Beef and I sat over the mouse snowglobe and just watched him in his little pyrex biodome. He just sat there and cleaned himself. He ran in a couple circles and then resumed cleaning himself.

He was adorable.

He looked like Fievel. Crap...I was now picturing myself driving to Petsmart to get a cage for Fivel.

But no - I snapped out of that thought quickly.

I could put a dictionary on his bowl. Then he couldn't escape and the cats couldn't dig him out. I'd leave a nice note for Gabe and he could figure out what to do. Hadn't I done the hard part in catching him?!

But there were some flaws in this plan. One the cats would knock it over and release my mouse. Two - he might bake in the bowl in the sunlight and that is just gross. Three - it really wasn't that hard to trap him, he didn't fight at all.

My second plan - scoot him slowly along the carpet to the patio - open the door lift the edge of the bowl and let him scoot to freedom.

So I was working him slowly along the floor. Not too fast to crush him, or accidentally release him, the whole time my two non-killer kittens swarmed going, "What are you doing? Hey where are you taking that? Can I have it? How about now? Can I have it now? Oh neat - where did this come from?!"

I got him to the door and realized, dumbass, there is a giant lip on the patio door. If you lift the bowl he will squirt out either side, the chances of him running straight on into freedom not so hot.

So I go to the office and grab a legal pad, I slip it under the bowl gently working it and eventually get the bowl onto the legal pad!

SUCCESS! My mouse is now trapped under the bowl and the cardboard means he can't escape.

So, now my plan is to slowly stand and walk the mouse out to the back of the property and liberate him into the swamp. He can then go discover the Secret of NIMH.

It dawns on me at this point that when I work from home it's VERY casual Thursday. I am still in my pajamas; namely a long t-shirt and polkadot underwear.

I weigh the risks of setting the damn mouse pod down to put on pants, and the fact that it's 11 am on a Thursday, I then factor in how much tree coverage I have in my backyard and figure - so be it...I am going into the backyard in my underwear.

Rock on!

I step outside slowly. I make a quick peek to each side. I see no one which means no one can see me. (Shut it - this is my logic!)

I start to slowly walk along the deck and realize how tippy this heavy glass bowl is on a very thin legal pad. I also realize it looks like I am going to go serve a mouse to a Fancy Feast Persian cat as I carry this mouse out like a waiter.

Oooh still wobbly...mustn't drop - or lift an edge -- mouse will see it has his opportunity to fly at my face and get stuck in my hair...

At this point I'm not really sure what happened. I went to step off the deck, but didn't bother to look where I was stepping for fear Fievel here saw it as his chance to make a break for it.

It all happened so slowly. I actually heard my scream in slow motion. A low baritone of "wwwoooooaaahhhh nnnnnoooooooo!" as my arm pitched forward launching the mouse into orbit. The legal pad slowly spinning away from the bowl...I looked down at the grass that was slowly coming towards my face...I am not sure but I think I even heard Fievel go "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Tiny pinpricks of tears stung the corners of my eyes...you know the instant tears you get when there is serious pain.

I think for a good two minutes I sat there in disbelief at what the hell just happened and a silent mantra of "oh ow ow ow ow oh oh oh ow ow" as if I was praying to the grape stomp lady herself.


I look down and see Fievel still under the bowl. Somehow it had trapped him still --landing on top of him and pinning him to the ground. He was pressed up against the glass -- alive but not moving...apparently his little feet had never touched grass before because he was doing everything in his power to not touch it now.

I went to stand...no dice...it hurt to bad...I lifted the bowl and said, "Be free and then limped into the house giggling at the fact that I just fell off my deck and threw a mouse in the air...in my underwear...

I went back in the house. Grabbed an ice pack and gimped my way back to my office.

Mochachino was still on the router and gave me a nod.

By this time I had accomplished no work and should head to my afternoon meetings. I packed my stuff -- made a half hearted effort to trap Mochachino in the pyrex bowl but she scooted away and I couldn't get her.

Screw it.

I got dressed for work and took off.

On my way home from work I called Gabe to re-tell my tale of shame.

"Go look at the router - I bet she's still there."

"Umm...ok...what do you know...I'm gonna need two hands for this...*click*"

Gabe and done his classic - ice hockey maneuver of flicking the little bugger into a garbage can.

He then released her into the wild. I'm sure of it. And if he didn't...*fingers in ears* "la la la I can't hear you!"

Call me crazy but that night I swear I heard singing.

Kids the real lesson in all of this is simple. Don't work from home. You'll just end up laying in your underwear in the dirt of your backyard pitching rodents into the cosmos.