I was looking at my little deermouse tonight. I’m not really sure how many years I have had him. Four, I think. The night I caught him the cats had him cornered in the upstairs bathroom and when there was nothing left for him to do, he turned his back and started washing his whiskers. If he were going to die, he would do it with a clean face. I was so touched by his courage and acceptance, that I scooped him up with my bare hands and he has been on my desk ever since.
He’s had everything a mouse could want , including a squeaky exercise wheel and various soup cans for sleeping quarters. He’s gotten everything from Cheetos to mouse chow, peanuts to pumpkin pie. (by the way you lick all the cheese off the Cheeto first.) He’s had a good life for a mouse.
Tonight, I was giving him a cheese nip and noticed that he was much thinner than he used to be. His muzzle is grey and his whiskers sparse. He is getting old. How many mice ever get the chance to get old, I wonder? Still he runs in his wheel and tucks his food away in his soup can for later. Each time I sit down at the desk, he runs out to see if I have brought him anything. I suppose some morning he just won’t come out of his can any more and that will be the end. I hope so. He deserves to die peacefully in his sleep with his tummy full of Cheetos, not as a snack for some hungry cat.
But when he goes….I bet his face will be clean.
It reminds me of another mouse story.
Of mice and Men (highly educated men)
It seems like the phone only rings when I am either feeding something or washing a fuzzy little butt. Either way it is an interruption and hopefully I get time to wash my hands before I pick up the phone. On this particular day, I was feeding two fawns and washing another fawns butt (in one end and out the other) when the phone rang. I managed to tuck one of the bottles under my arm and wipe my hand on my apron before I grabbed the phone in the shed. (I have phones in the oddest but most convenient places around here) I wedged it between my ear and shoulder so I could continue feeding.
The professional sounding voice on the other end hardly waited for me to say hello, “This is DR Edward Hildibrand,” He said athoritively. “My daughter has found a squirrel this morning and you HAVE to take it.”
This conversation was arrogant on so many levels, that I was already loosing patience. “Well, Dr Hildibrand, tell me how you found this squirrel and what does it look like?” After spending years chasing after supposed bear cubs that turn out to be old porcupines and retrieving a seagull, that the caller INSISTED was an eagle under her porch, I have gotten in the habit of asking for descriptions.
There was a tone of exasperation on the other end of the line. ‘We found it in the driveway this morning. It doesn’t have any hair and it’s about an inch long. You have to come and get it NOW, we are on vacation and I have things to do.”
Oh gosh, he was on VACATION, he must have really pressing, important things to do, but since he was a doctor, I’d give him the benefit of a doubt. “Well, sir, I said, I don’t actually come to pick up the animals. It’s standard for the person who finds it to bring it to me. “ I explained as concisely as possible that if I were to travel to pick up every animal call every day, not only would I not have any gas, but there would be no time left to take care of the animals I did pick up. I could tell he didn’t like the idea, he was on VACATION after all and that was more important. “Are you sure it’s a squirrel?” I asked, it sounded awfully small to be a June squirrel.
You could hear the ice form over the telephone line. As he spoke slowly enough for someone of my obvious low IQ to understand. “Yes, I’m sure it is a squirrel. I have a PHD for God’s sake. My daughter found it in the driveway and she won’t stop crying till we take care of it. I told her that you people get paid to come take care of these things.”
Ohhhh, A PHD doctor….on VACATION! Wow, this was my lucky day! I tried to keep any trace of smugness from my voice as I said. I’m sure you weren’t aware of this sir, but we don’t get paid to do this job and I’d really appreciate it if you could drive the animal out to me.”
Then he played what he thought was his trump card. He put his daughter on the phone. She sounded about seven. She was crying. “My Daddy said that you would come and take care of this poor baby squirrel so we can go on our boat trip. He promised that you would do it!” I could hear her little foot stomp in her hundred dollar sandals.
“Well honey, I will take care of your little squirrel, if your daddy would just be kind and generous enough to drive him to my house. You see, I can’t leave right now because I am feeding some baby fawns. Would you like to see the fawns? They still have their spots and will drink out of a bottle for you.” HAH! Ace in the hole.
I could almost hear her eyes get big and round as she told her daddy, in no uncertain terms, that they were going to get in the car and drive her little squirrel to the nice lady’s house and feed the baby deer.
He got back on the line. It was difficult to understand him with his teeth gritting so loudly, but I made out that they would be leaving shortly for my house. I had saved the coup de gras. Are you sure,” I asked slow enough for even a PHD on vacation, to understand, “That it is indeed a squirrel? I want to have the proper formula ready and it would be different for, say, a possum or a chipmunk or a bunny.”
I’m sure there was spittle flying around his phone as he growled. “It’ a squirrel, damnit. I know a squirrel when I see one.”
“Ok,” I said cheerfully, “we’ll see you in about 20 minutes. Do you need directions?”
I could feel him roll his eyes and curse ever coming to a backwoods place with so many ignorant country people for his precious vacation. “No thank you. I have On Star.” He hung up.
OOOOOOH, ON STAR. Now I’m impressed
I busied myself getting an intensive care room ready for the squirrel if he should require it. Actually, intensive care means that I put a heating pad in the bottom of the cardboard box, but it sounds good. I mixed formula for what I assumed would be a red squirrel and watched Martha Stewart until I saw the shadow of a huge SUV with Detroit license plates block the sun from the window. I met them on the porch.
The daughter was adorable in her matching sun hat and shorts ensemble. It was pretty obvious that her sunglasses cost as much as my bib overalls, T-shirt and shoes, combined. She came skipping up the steps and plopped on my porch swing. Daddy came sauntering up next. He didn’t use the railing. I think he was afraid he might get dirt on his Geoffrey Bene shirt. (I don’t think my car cost as much as HIS sunglasses) He glared at my slobbering Labrador who was eager to do his happy-lick-lick dance and shoved an L. L. Bene shoebox under my nose. “It’s in there” he sneered as he took out a bacterial wet wipe from his pocket and washed his hands.
“Thank you”, I smiled and looked to his daughter. “Come on honey, you can pet the deer while your daddy fills out the paperwork”. The child was squealing with joy as the fawns licked her face and hands. I got out my record book and asked him to spell his name. I entered it and he reminded me, twice, that I had omitted the DR from in front of his name. After I finished with the address and phone number (and he reminded me about the DR again) I opened the box containing the “squirrel”.
I looked up at his well tanned face, “What kind of doctorate do you have?
He puffed up and looked down on me. “Economics, of course. Why do you ask?”
“Because,” I deadpanned, “I wondered what kind of education you need to have to tell a squirrel form a mouse.”
I couldn’t help it. I started to giggle. I’ve never seen a man’s face get that particular shade of red, before or since. He stood there, opening and closing his mouth like a fish in the bottom of a rowboat as his little daughter bounced in the back door.
Is my squirrel ok? What will you do with it when it grows up? Will you let it go free like my daddy says you will? Can I see him again, can I, can I?” She was literally dancing with excitement around me feet.
I told her that even though it might have LOOKED like a squirrel, it was actually a mouse. I reasured her that even if it was just a mouse, I would take care of it anyway. The only problem would be that the mouse would be so tame that it couldn’t be released back into the wild and someone would have to take care of it for the rest of it’s life. At this exact moment, I looked downcast and said, “It’s too bad that I don’t have a little girl of my own to take care of a pet mouse as pretty as this one will surely grow up to be.” As she was peering sadly into the depths of the shoebox, I asked, “How long will you be here on vacation?”
“Oh, we have the whole summer here. We rented a big house on Lake Michigan and we aren’t going home till August. Are we Daddy?”
The fish face turned ashen white as Dr Hildibrand realized what I was going to do next. It was like a train wreck in front of you. You see it happening, but you are powerless to stop it. All you can do is hope you get out of it alive.
I’d let him live, but not let him off easy.
I put my hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “If I feed the baby mouse milk until it can eat seeds and cookies and all sorts of mouse stuff by itself, would you like to come back and take it home with you to live? You must remember though, it can never be released to live in the wild or it will die and he will need lots of special mouse food and fun mouse toys.” At this, I smiled beatifically up at the good doctor.
He stood there with the look of a condemned man meeting the preacher at the cell door. His adorable, but spoiled little girl threw her arms around his legs and chanted “ThankyouDaddy! ThankyouDaddy! ThankyouDaddy!” He let out a long sigh of resignation.
I like a man who recognizes when he has been beaten by a master.
We spent the next 45 minutes feeding the mouse with an eyedropper and putting together a mouse cage for her to take home till the mouse was ready to live in it. Finally I wrote my phone number on the inside of the little girls shoe so she could call and check on his progress. (Phone numbers written on paper can get lost you know). It was time to send them off in their gas guzzling SUV so they could finally go boating.
As I was waving good-by, I heard the lovely sound of thunder.
I hate raising mice, but sometimes, gosh, it’s worth it.