Beck sets a pastoral scene... (mice, mice, and more mice)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was laying on my hospital bed and I hear a squeak and I hear it again. I turn over and see a tiny bird on the window sill.
A flood of memories come racing to my mind.

Cast your mind back a few years:

We were between cats at the time. I had one pet. A high maintenance Chihuahua named April.
We stopped at the Pet shop to buy Aprils precious specialty dog kibble. The kids were looking at the small animals in cages. The Pet shop guy started the upsale. The kids wanted hamsters.
I looked in my pocketbook and thinking about the high price of Hamsters, habitats, food and accessories (probably they would need small hats and clothing, who knew?)
I vetoed that quick like.
Mid-daughter was doing her best moist eyed beg, she was a master at it. Son-of-a-wrek was non-commital. He threw in a “please, Ma” every few minutes to add atmosphere and to back up his sister. “No” sez I.
Mid-daughter wanders around near tears and finds an aquarium full of tiny white mice.
You know the ones? The Snake people buy them and set them free to frolic in the wilds.
Anywhoo, they are 50 cents each. I have an aquarium at home. All I need is bedding and micey food. The Pet shop guy picks out the 2 Mid-daughter wanted and 1 for Son-of-a-wrek. He really didn’t care. Didn’t want the responsibility. It might’ve cut into his Nintendo time.
We check out. My lord micey food is expensive. Of course there was only a huge package. I though mice could eat ANYTHING. Not these purebreds.
We get home and get them all set up. The kids enjoy watching them.
Scoot forward about three weeks. Mid-daughter screams, “Ma, we have baby mice!”
Oh. Shit.
Indeed we have 3 adult mice and 9 babies. Next day we have 12 more babies. Oh. Shit.
Son hollers, “Ma, the big mice are fighting, alot”. I run look. Yep. Fighting it is. You know the kind of fighting they do? Where the boy mouse is smiling, really big!
I’m at odds what to do.
The next day I call the Pet shop. Guy says he’ll take them. Not the adults, though.
I rip the babies from the bosoms of their mothers and take them to the Pet shop guy. I bought another small aquarium. And more bedding. This all takes place with Mid-daughter wailing and crying about her baby mice.
I get home to set up the new aquarium. I look and I swear to god I cannot remember which mouse is the boy mouse. None are smiling. They all look alike to me. No one looks preggers. I have, what? 25% chance to get it right if I just grab one (too much math anyway).
Jump foward…the kids are hepped up. New babies. In each aquarium there are at least 10 babies each. Of course the male is not sequestered. And he’s is again ‘fighting’ with a happy face with his aquarium-mate.
The Pet shop guy doesn’t really want the babies, but he takes them. He, then feels the need to give me a lecture on how to keep the mice separated. I buy ANOTHER aquarium and bedding. And more Mice chow. Damn these things eat alot.
I get home set up new aquarium. I now have 3 adult mice in 3 aquariums. Thank god.
A few weeks later Son-of-a-wrek hollers, “Ma, the mice are fighting again”. What!!??
I run in and look. I look, rub my eyes and look again. There are 4 mice in 3 aquariums. How, what!??. Oh, the incestuous bitch!! She screw…erm…fighting with her own son mice.
We missed a baby!
Here we go again. More babies and more babies and more babies

My last ditch effort to get out from under this horrid affair is to take a drive out to the country, far away from my country, mind you. And just dump the mice in a forest and bid them farewell.
When the kids are at school I put all the mice in one aquarium. They are stacked up like cord wood. I duct tape the top down. Don’t need any mishaps in the car. I find a nice place. Wait and make sure there are no cars coming buy. Slip out to the edge of the woods and untape the top and free the mice. One mouse doesn’t wanna come out. I look and he’s smiling leaned back in a corner. He must be real tired of ‘fighting’ in the orgy that was the combined aquariums. I pick him up. Ewww! gross he’s sticky! I flung him as far as I could. The skeevy little pervert!! Every mouse we had was his kids and grandkids (maybe great grandkids).

Mid-daughter had a full fledged tantrum when she got home from school. I told her of the nice forest they could scamper in and enjoy their life. It calmed her down.

Later that evening she said may be all her mice would meet up with the mice in the store. You know the ones? The Snake people buy them and set them free to frolic in the wilds.

Ah, such a pastoral scene that sets.

2

Thank you. I’ll have the creeps all evening.

One thing I dread about returning to our AZ home after our extended absence is finding what kind of horrible damage the little shits* have left for us.

*Little shits being the deer mice who invade our everything. And deer mice are creepy as Hell! Don’t believe me? Google deer mice and field mice and compare them side by side. Deer mice have HUGE freakin’ eyeballs! I swear they are aliens!
~VOW

3

Sorry ~VOW

4

Exposing impressionable children to mice porn…
~VOW

5

It was a fight club. Just call me Becky Vick. I had fighting mice.

6

Jump ahead a few more years. Mid-daughter is an angst filled teen. She fancies herself ‘goth’ She likes black clothing and and black fingernail polish. Begs to dye her blond hair either black or dark blue.
Around her birthday I ask her what she would like as a gift. She rolls her eyes and strides out of the room.
Later that same day she comes and sits down in the living room. I knew something was up. She NEVER wanted to sit in a room with the family.
She ‘ahem-ed’ a coupla times. I asked her did she need something. “No, Ma I don’t”
A few minutes later she says I know what I want for my birthday. “Oh, really” sez I.
She stutters around for a few more minutes and finally says: “I want a snake, so and so has Ball python and it really cool, please, please can I have one, pleeeease?”
Big Wrek, harumphs and leaves the room. Leaves me to deal with this. :smack:
With her best angst-y oily smirk, she says, “You won’t let me have one, so and so’s Mother is cool!”
I told her we would go to the pet shop and look, over the weekend. She was stunned.

Saturday comes around and we load up to go to the pet shop.
Wait, let me tell you, Mr.Wrekker said in, no uncertain terms, he will not have a snake living under his roof. No way! No how!
He leaves me to handle it. Per usual.

We’re at the pet shop. Looking at snakes. An informed guy comes to our aid. We ask questions, he answers. Mid-daughter has spotted one she likes. I asked about how much room does that size snake need. And he points us to a medium size aquarium. And tells us we need to get a small aquarium for the mice. Mid-daughters eyes get huge. The salesman points out a bank of aquariums with a sign that says ‘snake feeders’ Brimming with little scampering white mice.
She leaves, no RUNS from the store with a green cast to her face.
I’m pleased with myself.
Son-of-a-wrek is still looking at the feeder mice.
I told come on it seems your sister doesn’t really want a snake. He sez “Wait, Ma, look these mice are fighting”
I told him, “When your Dad gets home you and him need to have a talk”

Not me. No way! No how!

7

Fighting, my ass.

8

I’m proud to say, Son-of-a-wrek finally figured out the ‘birds and the bees’ and little white mice.
He’s a grown man, with children of his own.
I have to admit, some days I’m not so sure he’s playing with a full deck.

Mid-daughter has never lost her love of small mammals. Thankfully she’s steered clear of snakes. I remind her, often about getting mice, gerbils or hamsters for her own children.

Snakes, mice, rats and feral pigs will be dispatched to their heavenly hunting grounds if I see them in and around my house.

Or, maybe I’ll take them to a forest and let them scamper into the wild :smiley:

9

Dupe

10

Why would she need to buy a snake? They’re free for the catching in your yard. And they come in lovely colors, from pitch black to a shiny copper head, though BW has made his feelings clear about the latter.

11

I know, right?

12

No hormonal offspring were involved, but I have a mice story. Many mice. Many MANY mice.

We lived on a hilltop above a river north of San Francisco. The little house across the street was a weekend and vacation retreat for a well-to-do family, call them the Forbys. Very nice people. Tidy little house with a back garden surrounded by redwoods.

They threw a quiet party one weekend, with visiting relatives, some of whom apparently were a bit careless about securing foods. A couple of Forbys returned after two weeks, went inside, and ran out screaming. The exterminator’s truck arrived a half-hour later. The house was tented and fumed. Next day, the hazmat-suited guys rolled out cartload after cartload of… dead mice. Seems like every mouse in the precinct had zoomed in for free munchies. The Forbys completely gutted the house, removing and replacing all appliances, furniture, decor, everything. They were about three mice away from being a Superfund site.

My other mice stories are tedious so I’ll stop now. You can relax.

13

Mr.Wrekker has a lakehouse. He closes it every year around deer season.
When it’s time to fish and he reopens the house he has to clean dead mice and poison from the house. If he didn’t put out Decon bait in the fall, the mice would probably eat the house down.
This past fall I told him to put out a bunch of moth balls under the house and see if it turns the mice away. No report as yet, how it worked out.

14

So when married couples fight, it really means…:eek:?

I’ve never been afraid of mice. I even think they’re cute…in tanks…and not getting eaten. But if the get in the house, it’s war. Tell me why mice who have an entire wheat field and a creekat their disposal insist on coming in the house to leave little presents all over the cupboards, presents that require cleaning and sanitizing everything.

That Forby story might give me nightmares.

15

The lil’wrekker never wanted small mammals as pets. My Daddy bought her a parakeet when she was 3. She was too young to appreciate it. I enjoyed it.
But…she did want her very own doggie. For awhile stuffed doggies did it for her. Eventually, at age 12 she wanted a real dog specifically a Yorkshire Terrier. My old Rat Terrier had died and I didn’t have any cats at the time. I fostered dozens of kittens and dogs. Never fell in love enough to adopt any.
I was at the Vet with a foster kitten when a woman with a litter of Yorkies came in. They were less than a week old and having problems. I talked to her about them and looked them over. The runt was tiny tiny and breathing weird. She said it wouldn’t live. She was gonna ask the Vet to euthanize it.
When she left one puppy short I asked the Vet tech about it. She said it wouldn’t live long. I begged the Vet to let me have it for a few days and see if I couldn’t get it to turn the corner or die naturally. He argued the point. Saying it was surely not for this world long. I begged. He gave her antibiotics and vitamins injections. I bought milk replacement and bottles.
A week later I took her in to the Vet. He was surprised she was alive. He still thought it was futile. I kept feeding and petting and loving.
A month later I took her in to start puppy shots. He was astounded. He still thought she was fragile and brained damaged from lack of oxygen at birth. He still wanted to euthanize her.
I stuck with her. She was developmentally delayed and tiny still. I got her potty trained and had to coax her to eat.
I still have her. She’s nearly 10years old. I love that little disabled dog like no other dog I’ve ever had.
The lil’wrekker never really got her Yorkie. Altho’ sometimes she calls Grace the Yorkie her dog.

16

“Grace” sounds like the perfect name for that poor goggie.
~VOW

17

Ya know… … I’m not one hundred percent sure that’s what happens… but it’s probably pretty close! :smiley:

18

If you’re talking about the meese in the Four Corners area of the US, THEY’RE ALIENS!
~VOW

19

~VOW, if they’re aliens maybe they’re in your house to Phone home.

20

That was a beautiful mice story, Beck.

We rarely see mice around these parts, but I saw one when we were on a trip last year. We were staying in a hotel in London, and after a nice meal and several glasses of wine, we went to the hotel bar to have a little more. We were drinking our final glasses of wine, when I saw an adorable little mousiekins jump out of the fireplace and whisk around the corner out of sight.
Well, I always like to see the wildlife when we’re in a foreign country, so I mentioned it to my husband. He thought it was cool, but a few moments later when the waiter came back, decided to quietly tell him too. The waiter was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that there should be such vermin in his classy establishment. To appease us two perfectly happy (and feeling no pain) Americans, he brought us another bottle of wine.
Well, dang. We had really had enough already, but just to make that nice Englishman feel better, we went ahead and drank that bottle too.

Then some other stuff probably happened, but I don’t remember it. Soon it was the next day, and a very difficult day it was. So bright. So loud. We were so ill.

To this day, if either of us points out a mouse, the other will respond, “I don’t see a mouse.” That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
Sad. I’d like to see those fighting mice.