Heckel (or Jeckle?) Arrives Just in Time

<Viewer’s Discretion Advised; The following blog contains material that may be unsuitable for children, or squeamish adults… or PETA members>

Last Thursday while I was settling in to another productive day at work (I’d finished reading my daily blogs and the news and was trying to remember what I do for a living) I received a frantic 911 call (okay, IM) from my dear wife. As luck would have it, I log all my IM conversations at work:

(11:37:18 AM) Kimberly: Oh my Gosh!!!
(11:37:28 AM) Kimberly: There is a mouse in the dog food container!!!
(11:37:29 AM) Kimberly: alive
(11:38:04 AM) Kimberly: Kippppppppppppppppppppppppppp
(11:38:08 AM) Kimberly: help me!!!

I quickly rushed home and here is what I found at the scene. Our dog food container, two feet high, plastic, with a snap on lid, was in the garage where it normally was. Kim was standing next to it with little beads of sweat on her brow.

Inside, was (as I would soon find out) the cutest little (very plump) brown mouse I’ve ever seen. My dear wife spotted the mouse while she was refilling the dog food container, slammed the lid, and IM’d me .

[ If anyone out there has any idea how a little mouse made it into a sealed plastic dog food container I would love to know. I haven't had the time or inclination to dwell on it because I'm afraid I will just never find the answer.]

Not sure what to do, I wiped the little beads of sweat from my brow, put on my ‘protector’ face, and approached the container. It was really just a matter of making the right choice.

1. Let it go.
2. Smush it with something hard (mercy killing).
3. Wash out the hamster (God rest Hammy’s dead little hamster soul) cage and keep the mouse around for awhile. Like I said, he was really cute.

In reverse order:

3. Not a chance. These things carry the plague, ya know!
2. This option brought back horrible memories. You see, I’m an advocate of old-school mouse traps. They are cheap, easy, and you can toss them when they get gross and only be out 25 cents or so.

Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t really result in a ‘clean kill.’

Several months ago I came home from work and saw a little mousetrap running across the garage floor. It seems the trap just sort of grabbed on to a little guy’s nose. I quickly threw a box over him while I decided what to do. Sound familiar? This was an easier decision, though. Since this one was maimed I didn’t consider keeping him. Who wants a disfigured mouse?. And I figured if I let him go, he was just going to crawl off and die in the yard somewhere only to be brought in later by the dog. So the only option I felt I had was a mercy killing.

I placed a little rag over the box (coffin) grabbed a hammer (one of my smaller ones, I swear) and gave him a slight ‘tap.’ So yeah… mice are really small and their bones are not very tough. The little guy just, well…

<Viewer’s Discretion Advised; The following blog contains material that may be unsuitable for children, or squeamish adults… or PETA members>

EXPLODED… it was a total mess. And I almost hurled. It comes to mind often when I think of Sushi.

Option number 2 was out.

1. Let it go. Yes. I’d let it go. It would run off wild and free… over to the neighbor’s garage.

I carried the container to the edge of the yard, tipped it and the little guy came tumbling out. He looked up at me, flashed a little smile and started walking back toward our garage.

I ran up to the garage to stand guard. The mouse would take a couple steps toward the garage and then stop, wink at me & Kim, then take a few more steps. He was serious about moving back in.

Not quite sure what to do now, I picked up a golf ball sized rock and bipped the little guy in the head from about 12 feet away (this is because I was trying to aim ‘short’ to scare him away). The hit didn’t phase him and he continued to inch back toward the garage. Out of options, I started to reach for a shovel (ever see Psycho II?).

Then, it happened. Out of nowhere (or maybe out of the scrub oak on the side of our yard) appeared a chubby little magpie. In a flash, he dove down, nailed Jerry (this whole thing had gone on long enough that I went ahead and named him) about 6 times with his beak… just like a little bird jack-hammer. BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. Actually, it was more like a little bird ice-pick, but that’s just gross.

Then he picked him up, flew up into the scrub oak and…

<Viewer’s Discretion Advised; The following blog contains material that may be unsuitable for children, or squeamish adults… or PETA members>

started to tear Jerry into little tiny mouse pieces. I was devastated and horror-stricken so the first thing I could think of was to run inside and grab the camera (not my fault… I have crazy people on my side of the family).

Unfortunately, when I tried to get close enough for some good pictures, Heckel (or Jeckle?) flew down out of the tree and landed about 20 feet away from me (BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM (pick-pick-pick-pick-pick)), so what you see below is the best I could do.

Not sure what we should do at that point, we looked at each other, said “Wow, that was weird,” and went inside and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.