Fievel OR Tales of a One Eyed Mouse OR Learning to respect your enemy

Is there a name for people you know... but don't know? That lady on the bus that you nod to every morning. You know she has kids (she calls to make sure they get out to school). She reads romance novels voraciously (a different ripped bodice every other day). She's frugal (occasionally uses recycled shopping bags to carry things). And she's probably a mid-level "corporate peon" since she gets off in front of the business park and wears nice clothes (but does after all ride the bus).

Name? No idea. Married? No idea. If she got hit by a bus (hopefully not THIS bus... you'd be late for work), or moved, or won the lotto the only difference is that you MIGHT be able to get the good seat in front of the back door that she always grabs before the bus comes to your stop.

Well anyways... This was my relationship with Fievel. We'd 'nod' to each other in the kitchen at night when he was fleeing into the mouse hole under the dishwasher. Oh it's you again. Fancy seeing you here. We do keep running into each other... All I know is that he's the small one. He seems to like heavy sauces since we find his "markers" in the Tupperware that had the heavy sauces. Oh... and he can run down a vertical surface like nobodies business.

Now since we live in the country and in a log cabin (which is almost impossible to seal against the weather let alone determined wildlife) I fully expect, Mickey, Fievel and all their relatives to be in the house. We cope. If nothing else we are heavily invested in Tupperware containers big enough to contain several bodies (although after the second or third body it does get hard to 'burp' them and keep things fresh). Also, we've bought yards (pounds?) of steel wool to seal all the cracks we can find.

If it weren't for the fact that Willie is allergic to rabies shots and that mice can carry rabies we'd probably let nature take its course and let the 'big four leggeds' deal with the 'small four leggeds'.

As it stands we KNOW that the cats know where the mice go to hide. Bennie spends a good portion of the day snoozing on the rug in front of the cook top where he can keep an eye on the mouse hole under the dishwasher (actually a gap between the dishwasher and the counter bottoms. I should stuff it with steel wool...)

So what about the one eyed mouse? Well this afternoon Bennie caught Fievel and, I thought, did him in. I managed to get the, I thought, dead mouse away from him onto a piece of cardboard. As I took the dead, I thought (sensing a theme?), mouse out to dump I thought to myself "Poor mouse, its a good thing Bennie killed you since he put out your eye." and then I dumped him over the edge of the deck to let some other critter eat him.

Tonight I go into the kitchen to get my evening yogurt... and who do I see wondering around tonight's dishes looking for something saucy... Fievel! Well... that is... unless there's another one eyed mouse running around the house looking a little worse for wear. He obviously wasn't on his game... in about 10 minutes I was able to drop a big lid over the little Tupperware he was in and catch him.

I was a little torn over what to do. I mean on one hand he is a tenacious little vermin that survived pronouncement of death to return to the scene of the crime to wreak continued havoc. On the other hand I'm firmly against kill traps and decidedly against killing critters myself. (Don't get me started on Glue Traps... )

So I took the Tupperware and Fievel in it, down to the patch of asphalt across the road from our road where the cops hide to catch people coming over the hill too fast and let him go in the woods. He might be making his way back for all I know in which case we'll do this again... But to make it back he has to cross a four lane highway (two lanes each way), make it up the hill (about a third of a mile) crossing a stream and the territories of two adult hunting cats (our neighbors) and then make it back into the house.

But he's gone for now. Which leaves me wondering... is it wrong to feel guilty for the one eyed Fievel? Ghandi is famously quoted as saying "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." but I wonder if even he would have thrown a fit after something small and furry ate his leftovers AGAIN...

Well... there is a creepy image floating around my skull of Mr and Mrs Ghandi arguing again about putting mouse traps in the pantry or at least getting a cat... But that doesn't count does it?