Kamikaze Mouse

The following story was initially contained in an e-mail to my friend Suzy who gets credit for inspiring me and shall henceforth be known as Suzy Muse, which sounds ever so nice…

Wanna hear a mouse story? I know you do! I never get tired of telling them so of course it stands to reason that no one ever tires of hearing them. Mwa ha ha.

In any case, we have a stupid and/or kamikaze mouse in our kitchen. Or maybe a whole fleet of them, it's tough to tell with mice. Two nights ago, I was chopping up some mango in my kitchen when a flurry of movement to my left caused me to leap into the air, uttering a maidenly cry of distress. And there was a wee mouse, lurking under my shelving unit. So I briskly rattled the shelves hoping to scare him away. But the little bugger wouldn't go! I poked at him with a spoon and then he ran, but only as far as the end of the counter where he proceeded to hide behind some melons, thinking he was invisible there. Then he kept coming back out under the shelves. Rattle. Flee. Hide. Return. Repeat. The whole time I was in there! I was in mortal fear that he would suddenly turn totally deranged and race across my cutting board and possibly up my arm and into my hair, where he would then nest.

And then last night he was back again! I had to sit in the kitchen the whole darn time I was baking, to guard my cooling muffins, because I was sure that if I left them alone even for an instant, I would return to find a horde of ravenous mice getting a free dinner. So I sat there, alone, at 10 o'clock at night, jumping at every small noise because I was sure it signaled the arrival of the mouse horde. Or perhaps a rat horde, the mice being scouts for a larger and more terrifying menace. And I did, in fact, spy 3 mice (or the same mouse three times) throughout the course of the baking spree. And I shrieked every time. Damn things.