Mouse House!

Last June, my mom bought my sister two mice. She had to tell Callie that there would be no drive across the country as a family (at one point the plan to get me back to Pittsburgh included a two week trip in an RV), so to cheer her up, she took her to PetCo to pick out a small pet (aka rodent). Callie wanted a hamster but my mom spotted the mice. She decided that the mice looked more active and were cheaper, so she bought my sister two white mice. Now, all my sister wanted her entire life was a dog. All she freakin' talked about was "When can I get a dog?" The answer was always, "Never, you're allergic." Thus, my sister ended up with fish (which my mom convinced her were real pets because she could put her hand in the tank and touch them) and two mice. I call these shitty fake pets. The fish are super shitty pets--they do not count as pets, they're more like something to stare at when you're drunk or can't sleep. (Luckily, my sister has never been drunk so she doesn't know this.) However, at least the fish are easy to care for. My dad cleans the tank every once in awhile and whenever a fish dies my sister gets to experience the excitement of buying a new fish. (Also, this is a valuable lesson in death.) But the mice are a different story. My dad hates the mice. He plots their death on a regular basis. He will not clean their cage, feed them, or water them; he calls them "those damn mice" and resents their existance. (He does think they're kinda funny though, particularly when they fall of stuff in their cage.) And my sister is not crazy about the mice. She kinda likes them--she did name them Christy and Callie--but mostly she's irritated that they don't let her pet them. My mom quickly realized that the mice were a bad idea, but her pride got in the way and she kept them. Because my dad hates the mice so very much and my sister probably wouldn't realize if they died, I've taken on the role of mouse care-taker to help my mom. I bought them a better mouse-house, some nice-smelling bedding to cover up the scent of their constant poohing, and a few toys. There seemed to be a balance and things were fine.

Then my sister actually got a dog!! (Her dog is my dog's brother.) Now, there's no pulling the wool over my sister's eyes--she has a real pet and can clearly see the shittiness of her pseudo-pets that my mom tried to pawn off on her. She has lost all interest in the mice and now my mom wants so badly to get rid of the rodents she cages and cares for. She called my sister's school and asked if she could donate them as a class pet, she asked her clients if any of them want the pesky non-pets, she tells me on a regular basis to ask my students if anybody wants the mice, and she constantly bothers me to post them on Craigslist. She's gone so far as to suggest just letting them go outside. I realize that logically speaking they might be just fine, but it seems morally reprehensible to purchase a pet, care for it for a little while, then let it go in the wild. Her other recent suggestion was feeding them to a python. So disturbing. (Not that we even have a hungry python handy.)

Another problem with the mice is their wheel. It squeaks. Not just a little. A lot. A constant, ear-screeching squeak that after about 10 minutes makes you want to go find a gun and shoot the tiny bastard mice. To alleviate the squeaking, my mom discovered that she could spray Pam on the wheel and it wouldn't squeak for awhile. At first, she would take the lid off their cage, then spray it. But that took too long, so now she just stands over the cage, holding the bottle above the wire mesh covering, and sprays directly onto the wheel. Even when the mice are on it. Both mice now have permanent grease marks on their backs. I claim that she is marinating them for the python.

Tonight, the wheel was driving us nuts. I was over my parents' house (mooching food because I have nothing at my house) and we were watching The Mentalist (great show, you should check it out). I had to keep rewinding the show because we couldn't hear what cutie Simon Baker was saying over the high-pitched wine of the wheel. My dad got up and came back with a wire hanger, unbent, and started aiming it through the wire mesh of the mice's cage. I assumed he was going to impale the mice--perhaps make a mouse-kabob? But he wasn't; he'd had enough of the noise and he was stopping the wheel with the hanger. It worked. So now we have a way to stop the wheel from spinning and a way to grease the wheel without ever removing the cage top.

In the quiet of the mice, my dad suggested we cook them with the turkey on Thanksgiving. We decided we could place them on top of the turkey, as tiny meat garnishes. Or we could roast them like pigs and put a little cranberry in each of their mouths.

Poor mice......