Weapons of Mouse Destruction

102 Weapons of Mouse Destruction

How many of us have waited for how long to start one of these off thusly: It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, it was. Golf-ball size hail, drenching downpours, high winds. Thunder. Lightning. Power failures. All that. A certifiable dark and stormy night.

So it’s easy to understand how a dumb young field mouse sought refuge inside. He picked the wrong house.

And now, he’s in Mouse Heaven, the victim of the business end of a “Swifter Max” floor sweeper, a ceramic knife that once made it by air from Canada undetected in a carry-on bag, a spray can of Lysol and a rubber flipflop.

This was a truly international force. A coalition, if you will.

The flipflop was made in China and operated by a soldier who also was from China, who also had charge of the “Linen Fresh” Lysol disinfectant. The “Swifter Max” has components from China, Viet Nam, and the US and the knife was made in Germany. These last two were operated by the American-led part of the coalition and its only member.

First, intel- recon, then search and destroy. The enemy showed himself, but only briefly as he skittled across the bedroom floor, first into one corner then another, the allied forces close on his heels (do mice have heels?)

“Mouse sneaky,” said a representative of the Chinese division, “but I more sneaky!”

But in the end, it took brute force and illegal weaponry to end this reign of terror.

First, the mouse is cornered in the closet. Then the chemical weapon, Linen Fresh Scent Lysol Spray, which slowed The Aggressor down. (Does the Pentagon still refer to “the other side” as “The Aggressor” in its training movies? The Aggressor always wore something we viewers thought of as a Russian uniform. Come to think of it, does the Pentagon still use training movies?)

Then the Swifter Max shoves the bleary eyed mouse into a corner and the coup de grace is administered with the knife.

All the while, the UN has condemned the action of this coalition while at the same time providing troops and weapons.

Mice are picketing the front of the building and threatening suicide bombings. Something about the mice wanting to return to land they have occupied for many generations.

We point out politely that mice are not indigenous to the region, that they were brought here by the construction boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. But this doesn’t change anyone’s mind. Meantime, the mouse population is burgeoning.

Consulting the rules of the condo association, we find that the mice have a vote, if they are “heritage mice” – mice whose ancestors were here before the building. The rest are illegals.

We need a wall.

And some unarmed helicopters with GPS units.

Or maybe a cat or two.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2006 WJR