I caught a mouse last night. It wasn’t wearing clogs, as is reasonable for a mouse not living in Holland. Neither was it a poor country mouse that had swapped places with the posh town mouse. Of course, it would be the poor town mouse and the posh country mouse these days. Possibly. Depends which town.
Anyway, I was washing the dishes (using my system. You’ve got to have a system) when I saw this little fella pop out from under the washing machine. It gave me a start, and I think I involuntarily yelled out, “Woah there, Mr. Mouse!”. It ran into the bathroom, and it was in there that I cornered it.
First I pulled the washing machine out from it’s alcove. I wanted to see where the mouse had come from. I had already filled in various pipework holes with spray filler foam and duct tape after previous visits, so I wanted to know I had missed anywhere. Sure enough, there was evidence of mouse activity, namely, poop. It was time to confront the poop perp.
I walked carefully into the bathroom. The mouse was hiding in the corner, and I have to say it looked really cute. I approached it, and it twitched, but didn’t make a run. I shut the bathroom door behind me. I didn’t want to hurt the thing, even though it would probably be best in the long run. Keeping one eye on it, while it kept both it’s beady eyes on me, I got the recently-emptied bathroom bin, and approached. It made a run for it, but there was nowhere to go. After a few seconds frantic scurrying and skidding on the tile, it ran into the bin placed in front of it. It tried to jump out, so I grabbed my bathroom book, currently Spacewrecks by Stewart Cowley and put it over the top. Trapped!
I grabbed by coat, and walked to the end of the street where I’ve released mice before. It may not make sense, as they will just hassle someone else, or even return to my flat, but I can’t bring myself to hurt them. I let it go, and it scurried off – in the direction of my flat. Surely it wasn’t homing?
In other rodent news, it appears to be the Chinese year of the Rat. Having been born in 1972, I am a Rat myself. In another mythology, my birthday means I am a Gemini, which means that everything I say and do my entire life can be attributed to the motions of a certain arrangement of nuclear furnaces light-years away. Gemini is apparently an Air Sign. This is another way of stripping me of any free will and unique personal qualities.
“So you’re a Gemini?”
“So they say”
“That means I know everything about you, and whatever you do, I can nod and say, “Aha, Gemini”. ”
“Try it, hippie.”
“Aha, Gemini!”
So. I am a Gemini Rat. An Air Sign Rat. An Air Rat. A Rat of the Air.
I am a Pigeon.