Mice are rather nice — for the most part

The terrified lady stands on a chair, raises her skirt, screaming and glares at the tiny creature looking up at her from the floor. That’s the typical picture that pops into the mind when you think of mice. However, I’ve had some fun encounters with those little rascals.

My dad had two weeks of vacation from the railroad each summer. He used that time to drive grain truck for the McIntosh farm in Tammany to supplement our income. When I was 3 years old, they were short on truck drivers and he worked sunup to sundown, exhausted and almost falling asleep on the way home. The McIntosh family suggested we move to a little house they had on the property. It was so kind of them. Mom worked in their garden and I roamed like a free-range chicken.

One laundry day after scrubbing clothes on the washboard and Mom was hanging them on the clothes line, I came running across the field hollering, “Look Mama, look.” I held something cupped in my hands. Mom’s immediate fear was, “I hope it’s not a baby rattlesnake.” She ran to me. I was grinning. “It’s nice and soft but it’s got stickers on its feet.” I opened my hands and a baby mouse sat there quivering. That’s when I fell in love with those tiny guys called mice.

For some reason, Dad didn’t appreciate mice building nests in his shop. As soon as the cats discovered them, he would finish them off.

Fast forward to my first house after marriage. We were watching TV in the living room when my eye caught a movement. It was tiny and gray. It scampered to the middle of the room, stopped and sat up on its back haunches to watch “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It was so cute. Every night it made a return visit. He especially liked to watch “Hee Haw.” After a few months, we were given a black cat. Our mouse companion never returned.

Our Clarkston house had several mice visitors. My first experience was hearing a loud crunching sound in the washroom all the way to the other end of my house in the bedroom. The door was even closed. I tiptoed to see what was going on and there sat a mouse chewing on dried beans from my pantry shelf. Who knew a chewing mouse could be so loud. We got a cat. Sure enough, no more mice — until, the cat grew old, fat and lazy.

I love my honey cough drops from Germany. They’re soothing and immediately stymie a cough. I kept them in the kitchen drawer by the sink. Allergies hit. I reached for a drop. What in the world? All that was left was the hard outer shell of each. Something ate all the honey from the center. You guessed it — a mouse. I couldn’t find the culprit, until I pulled out a seldom-used bottom drawer where I keep my cookie cutters. There laid a very fat, very dead mouse. He overdosed from honey. He was a good example of the saying, “Too much of a good thing.”

My son brought two cats home when he moved back from California. No more mice problems until they discovered the little prey making their home in the ivy of my yard. One cat brought a mouse gift into the house and drop it on the floor. The mouse quickly scurried away while the cat just sat watching. Oh, dear.

I was sitting on the patio one day when a movement caught my eye. Yes, a mouse. The tiniest I’ve seen since I was 3. Just a baby. It was adorable. I let it scamper away. That was a mistake. That winter I set traps in my storage area and caught 14 mice in a month. It was time to get another cat.

Since we homed our gray tabby, Felecia, we’ve had no more invasions. It helps that two neighborhood, orange tabbies now patrol my yard.

I’m sure these tiny, fuzzy guys have a place in God’s creation. I still think mice are nice, and adorable, but I’m convinced they’re not a good house companion.

Chase Hoseley is a freelance writer and retired kindergarten teacher who lives in Clarkston. She can be reached at shoseley8@gmail.com.