To The Rescue

Mamakat's Pretty Awesome Writing Prompt: 1.) Share a story about a stray you took in or an animal you once rescued.

We are animal lovers in this house.  We watch Animal Planet, National Geographic(the channel with the animals, not the one with all the prison shows),  Discovery, etc.  We have spent time with Planet Earth and Blue Planet.  We have had dogs.  We have even had a goldfish named Bob.  We also have cats.  We have two inside cats, and we have several feral cats that we feed and water but otherwise leave alone. 

When we came home from the movies yesterday(Amazing Spiderman, of course!),  I heard a *squeak-squeak-squeak* sound as I unlocked the front door, but I dismissed it as one of the barnswallows that are currently housed in a nest above our door.  My husband happened to look down, however, and he saw a little mouse lying on its side.  He mentioned it to me, and I went outside to scoop it up with a paper plate and put the carcass in the garden, out of the sight of my son.  Poor mouse, I thought, as I bent over.

Only this mouse was not deceased.   It lay there, tiny and forlorn, breathing rapidly. 

I stood up quickly; this was an entirely different situation.  Because, ew.  A freakin' mouse!  I am just girlie enough to be a little disconcerted by the idea of a little mouse running about.  I stepped to the door to alert Larry, just as the little critter awoke from its faint and righted itself.

"Larry, get me some gloves to pick this mouse up,"  I cracked the door and told him.  "It is still alive."

I waited, both eyes on the mouse, who had moved nearer to the wall and was looking around furtively, trying to recover.  I planned on scooping the mouse up with the gardening gloves, thinking that the fabric would be thick enough to resist any mouse bites.

The door opened.  Larry  passed me a pair of gloves.  Surgical gloves.  He hands me...surgical gloves.

"I can't pick up a mouse with these!"

"Why not?"

"I need those thick gloves that a mouse wouldn't be able to bite through,"  I said.  (I get so frustrated when my husband doesn't read my mind!)

"I don't know where those are."  

The front door was open, and Zane was standing uncertainly close.  He was a little curious, but unsure of what we were discussing.  I beckoned him over.

"Zane, do you want to see the mouse?" 

Of COURSE Zane wanted to see the mouse!  He came running.  I showed him the mouse, and he talked to it, cooing and admiring.  Meanwhile, I was busy screwing up my courage.  Taking a deep breath, I leaned down and picked up the mouse by the tail. It hung, suspended, by my fingers.  I looked at it, twirling there, and mentally congratulated myself for not immediately dropping the poor thing and running into the house while screaming.  Instead, I placed it on the plate, where the poor thing passed out again.  I mentioned to Zane that we needed to find a place for the mouse to hide until it felt better.  Zane had an idea.

Bring the mouse into the house, my sweet child who loves all animals tells me.   I again did not throw my hands in the air and run screaming at the idea.  While I placed the mouse safely underneath a mountain laurel tree, I spoke to Zane about the mouse being a wild animal and how wild animals were meant to be outside animals. 

That did not compute.  So I talked to him about how wild animals were allergic to air conditioning and how this mouse would eat all of his cereal bars and play all of his video games, and did he want to share his favorite Lego Batman pajamas with a mouse? 

Thankfully, my son was not in the mood to share yesterday.   And the mouse was not really all that excited about the idea of pajamas, I could tell.