Thursday, August 13, 2009

Mouse-ion Impossible.

Your mouse-ion, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the government facility we call "Volkswagon." Once inside, you must disable the windshield wiper aparatus. In incliment weather this should effectively immobilize the vehicle and the mouse nation can operate un-threatened.

So, last night the fam headed to a natural area just south of Wyoming to watch the Perseid meteor shower. The shower itself, while beautiful, wasn't particularly noteworthy, unless you consider small extraterrestrial chunks of debris making very temporary and ill-advised incursions into the earth's atmosphere to be noteworthy.

I should mention that this open space is in the middle of nowhere--about a 45 minute drive from Fort Collins--hence its selection for star-gazing. On the way home, after watching the stars for several hours, Cliff, Madeline and I headed back in the trusty VW Passat Hound. Becoming lost on the return trip, I stopped the vehicle to perform an "about face," when, unannounced, a mouse popped up from under the hood and scrambled on top of the windshield wipers! Now, a crueler person might have promptly wipered that mouse off into the heart of darkness, but, being the compassionate soul I am, I decided to remove the mouse more humanely.

That was before he decided to take up residence on my engine block. After the wily bugger slipped back under the hood and remained undetected during 5 minutes of flashlight searching, we gave up and, hoping not to smell fricasseed rodent wafting in through the vents, resumed the drive. Well, 30 minutes later, I slowed down to make a left hand turn, and, sensing the decrease in velocity, the mouse reappeared!

This time, I was ready. Having mulled over the damage small mousey teeth could do to the more sensitive components of my vehicle, I was feeling considerably less compassionate. So when this, the boldest of mice, decided to step onto the hood, I tapped the brakes.

Imagine if you can (and I doubt you can, unless you dream far more vividly than I) the terror, the unfiltered panic of sliding helplessly into a dark abyss; picture the frantic scrabble of impotent mousey claws against an unyielding metallic veneer as faster and faster you plunge off the brink into nothingness.

Now try to express those emotions of terror, disbelief and betrayal on a tiny, brown, whisker-bracketed face. I swear to you, it's possible. Only the Tom Cruise of mice could so accurately convey emotion.

Now please don't fret; we stopped and shooed the dazed mouse off into the bushes, so today he's fine (though no doubt massively inconvenienced).

1 comment:

Natalie G. said...

I decided to look back upon your blog randomly during an off period at god old FCHS.
I really cant describe to you how hard I laughed about the mouse bit...many dark looks towards me came from stressed out freshman nearest to me