Me and Mr. Mouse

Was it the mouse who roared?

We were when this story occurred, as in the people of country New South Wales (as well as the rest of Australia I believe) amid a mouse plague.

According to some information, I read that this is how the mouse plague cycle goes: First the drought then comes the drought-breaking rain which is usually followed by mice in their hungry, pervasive, destructive hordes. This, it is said happens every four years or so.

Not a fan, however, what can one do but hope that Harriett (our little Jack Russel cross Miniature Fox Terrier) can catch more than can invade our little country house at any one time…. That may sound cruel but really it is not, it is just a fact of life. She in fact has turned into a mouser extraordinaire!

Miss H. really earns her biscuits and as we speak, she is on the hunt just in case there is one around she has somehow missed…She managed four in one day last week …Her joy lies in the hunt. She doesn’t play with them. One quick nip behind the ear and her job is done.

But to get to the point of this tale I wish to tell you of a funniest (in hindsight that is) thing that also happened last week; most definitely of the French Farce variety.

It was a cold, Wednesday night and I was curled up in bed with a good book — an Elizabeth George in fact when out of the corner of my eye I saw something move in the shoulder of a dress which I had hung up on the wall as an art piece. Twitch, twitch — no, there it goes again, not mistaken so I called my husband

“John,” I said, “there is something moving under the fabric of the shoulder of my dress on the wall”.

“No,” he said, “don’t think so but I will take a look”.

So, he takes the dress off the wall and gives a good shake — nothing there —” I think you are mistaken” he says, but to humour me further he sorts through the assortment of bags (about 4) lying on top of a small suitcase in the corner of the room beneath the dress. In the process of sorting through, he puts a couple of these bags onto the end of the bed where I am sitting watching very closely in case Mr. Mouse somehow invades my space.

“Nothing there,” he tells me — “I’ll just put these bags back, everything is OK. Don’t worry”.

Famous last words these. Because as he is taking the bags off the end of the bed, he tips them up one last time to check their emptiness; and what do you know but a mouse leaps out of the last bag and heads at speed straight up the bed towards me!

I scream like a banshee, and as I am trying to escape my feet get caught up in the doona and then the sheets join forces with the doona to totally entangle me — I cannot get away — stuck and yelling.

In the process of trying to escape with my feet still stuck in the bedding, I somehow manage to fall sideways onto the bedside table and my hair ends up in my rather large glass of water.

I get out of the tangle and realise that now we don’t know where the wretched mouse has gone but that it is entirely possible for it to have gone down under the blankets- so here we are at midnight stripping the bed looking for that annoying little mouse.

This bed stripping was on a great need-to-know basis, as I was frightened that the little blighter would come out from wherever it was hiding and bite my toes in the night.

If you go and look at the videos on YouTube about the pigs being chewed by rampaging mice, you may get an idea of the mouse-chewing picture rampaging through my mind at this juncture.

We even got young Harriett (of mice hunting fame) out of her cozy little bed in the bathroom to come and help us find the mouse but to no avail — she could not find it either. The all-clear was then sounded. The bed had been remade, the best part being that no mouse has re-appeared so at last, I am feeling confident that I can safely resume reading in bed.

The only unfortunate aspect of this whole exercise was my lack of specific knowledge as to the actual whereabouts of said mouse.

Upshot. I am just about to get into bed when I spot on the floor under the bed and just near my toes, a furry little body that is as dead as a dodo.

But as none of us had touched the mouse, how did it die? But there it is, as dead as a doornail — too much excitement, I think! Probably sustained a heart attack from fright — indeed maybe even caused by my carry-on.

Poor little thing — probably not what it was expecting in its little jaunt through the house so late at night.

Definitely only funny in retrospect really!!

And certainly not much fun for the mouse.

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