Of Mice And Men

BFF and I love to play April Fool’s Day jokes on each other,  attempting to  convince the other to believe the unbelievable.

One April Fool’s Day, I had help in creating the perfect April Fool’s joke.

A prank so perfect that . . . well, I’ll let you be the judge.

Wikipedia ~ April Fool’s Day (in Public Domain)

I returned home from work to find both cats stationed outside the door to the master bedroom.

Hmm . . . that’s odd.

Then, I heard a “splash,” coming from the toilet.  I walked into the bathroom and found a mouse in the toilet ~ or, rather, soaring above it.

Turns out that mice can jump sky-high even from a dead standstill in the middle of a mouse-sized swimming pool.

To picture it, envision someone jumping into a swimming pool from the high dive . . . now, play that tape in reverse.

The mouse, who obviously had decided to die another day, leapt straight up out of the water, about a foot into the air, again and again, desperate to reach freedom.

I am an animal lover, just one of the many reasons that I am a vegetarian, but I did NOT want this determined little mouse roaming around the house for three good reasons:  turds, turds, turds.

Moreover, I did not want him getting out of the toilet since our two cats were eyeing him hungrily, having not yet had their dinner.

I closed the lid, and posted a post-it note on it, saying simply MOUSE IN HERE, in case BFF made it into the bathroom before I could fill him in on our April Fool’s Day visitor.

Undeterred, Stuart Little kept jumping up, and bumping up against the underside of the seat cover.   His efforts so Herculean that he actually lifted the lid with the force of his efforts to escape.

Wikipedia ~ Mighty Mouse (Fair Use)

I changed his name, on the spot, from Stuart Little to Mighty Mouse.

Remember Mighty Mouse?   ”Mighty Mouse is on the way . . . that means that Mighty Mouse will save the day.”    If you’ve never seen a Mighty Mouse cartoon, picture Superman as a rodent flying around, fighting villains.

Who came up with the idea?   Probably the guy who invented Under-Dog.

Anyway, since Mighty Mouse insisted on jumping with great intensity, the lid was bouncing up and down like rapidly exploding Jiffy Pop popcorn.

I grabbed an enormous phone book to weigh down the seat while I weighed my options.

One option, the easiest, was just to flush the wee beastie back down where he had come from.  After all,”what comes up, must go down.”  But that seemed rather heartless for an animal lover like me.

If we decided to go that route, my husband would have to press the lever since flushing rodents, like catching snakes, obviously falls into the clearly-defined category of Men’s Work.

Just then, I heard my husband’s car in the driveway.

I raced out to fill him in on the happenings, “BFF, you are not going to believe this, there’s a mouse in our toilet!”

He just grinned, “April Fools.”

“No, really, there is a mouse in the toilet.”

Not budging, he reached for his briefcase, muttering, “April Fools,” in such a disheartened manner that I knew he was disappointed that this was the best prank I had come up with all day.

Stamping my foot for emphasis, and dragging out the syllables of his name, I repeated, “B – F – F, I am not playing an April Fools’ joke on you.  There IS a mouse in the toilet.  It was there when I got home from work, and it is YOUR job, as the man of the house, to remove the mouse from these premises!”

Playing along with what he still assumed to be a joke, he followed me into the bathroom, saw the telephone book sitting on the throne wearing the post-it note as a crown, “MOUSE IN HERE.”

Smiling indulgently, he laughed, and repeated, “April Fools!” ~ sounding a bit cheerier as he said it . . . no doubt impressed by my props.

At that moment, Mighty Mouse banged his head against the lid, raising it up far enough that BFF realized that there was, indeed, something animate in the toilet.

“Crap!”

“No, not crap.  Mouse.  It’s a mouse.  If it was crap, I would have flushed it down already ~ if it’s yellow, let it mellow . . . if it’s brown, flush it down.”

BFF stared at me as if I’d lost my mind, then removed the phone book and lifted the lid to take a quick peek at the contents of the toilet.  Sure enough, the little gray mouse, somewhat tuckered out by now, was doggie-paddling around the bowl.

BFF closed the lid and sat down to think.  After all, what better place to think than on the toilet?  For men at least, it is the think tank of all think tanks.

Think Tank (in Public Domain)

Inspired, BFF ran to get the spa strainer to catch Mighty Mouse.  Likewise inspired, I added “spa strainer” to my shopping list.

BFF caught the mouse, first scoop!

Alas, the mouse escaped (while being transferred into the empty cat litter pail BFF intended to use as a transport vehicle), ran over to the sink, and squeezed between the wall and the cabinet ~ a space less than a quarter of an inch in width!

WTF?

Apparently, mice have bodies (and bones!) that conform to the space available.  Our visitor was gone, in a flash ~ like Flash Gordon or the real Mighty Mouse.

Not one to concede defeat, BFF got out his power tools, took out the bottom drawer of the vanity, and cut an enormous hole into cabinet carcass (the bottom frame of the cabinet) upon which the drawer sits.

Once into the mouse-sized Panic Room, BFF used the spa strainer, once again, to back Mighty Mouse into a corner and net him.

Success!

Wikipedia ~ House Mouse (in Public Domain)

This time, BFF took precautions to transfer the little guy from the net into the carrier pail without leaving anything to chance.

Covering the pail with the strainer net, BFF carried Mighty Mouse  outside and released him.

Mighty Mouse, uninjured except for a nick in his tail which had drawn a bit of blood, raced into the wild ~ where wild animals prefer to be (or at least where we prefer them to be).

Where was I during this catch and release mission?

Supervising the entire enterprise from the top of the bathroom vanity.

Hands down, it was the best April Fools’ Day ever!   For us, that is, I don’t think that Mighty Mouse enjoyed the experience at all.