grampa & mighty mouse

Hi Ji Hong, that was a lovely email that you sent to us; what language were you using?

I don't have a Maggie story but I do have a Mousey story for you.

GRAMPA AND MIGHTY MOUSE

Grandma and I went up to the Country House for the weekend. Very, very early on Saturday morning I woke up about 5:30 and had to pee very badly so I went into the upstairs bathroom and then decided, hmmmm, there is the biography of Napoleon that I am reading sitting at the top of the magazine basket....hmmmm, maybe I'll just sit down and read Napoleon for awhile...Hint, guess where I was sitting....

Anyways, as I am sitting there reading my dull brain starts to hear some strange, soft but continuous noises. I stopped reading and tried to listen carefully: I heard plenty of early-rising songbirds, some geese flew overhead and I heard a vehicle go by on Summer Avenue but it was still there: that strange noise....Finally I decided someone was trying to break into the house, maybe fiddling with the lock or with the window very softly so I put Napoleon down and got ready to get up when I looked around and I saw something from the corner of my eye in the BATHTUB. But then it was gone so I turned and saw a dark flash of something and it was gone....So I sat and stared at the BATHTUB AND THEN I SAW IT AGAIN AND AGAIN. So I got up and went over and had a careful peek and IT WAS THE CUTEST MOUSE I EVER DID SEE, TRAPPED IN THE BATH TUB AND FRANTICALLY JUMPING UP AND DOWN TO TRY AND ESCAPE. I wonder if he or she thought I was the cutest human they had ever seen? I am pretty sure I was the first human it had ever seen and it looked very frightened.

What should Grampa do? Now Ji Hong, you might not know it but Grampa is very afraid of mice. You see, when I was just about your age, every Sunday we would drive into Calgary and go to church in Forest Lawn, a neighbourhood in East Calgary. My Granma Catherine and Grampa Constantine lived about 2 blocks from Holy Trinity Church and after Mass, we would all go there and gather and visit and eat my Granma's fabulous home cooking (my favourite was pickled pig's feet).

I had to older cousins who would also be there (Johnnie and Allan) and my cousing Karen who I played with a lot. My Uncle Phil lived with my Grandma and Grampa and he was always there. My cousins and my Uncle Phil and my Uncle Andy loved to tease me; they were merciless. Their favourite was to put a chair over top of me (the same chair that Grampa sits on at his desk in Toronto) and because I was trapped, they would tickle me for hours, maybe it was days, it was so horrible.

But one Sunday, they really did it to me. The carried me out to the little barn where the chickens used to hang out and they HELD ME UPSIDE DOWN WITH MY LEGS HELD TOGETHER AND WITH MY ARMS HELD AT MY SIDES AND THEY STUCK ME HEADFIRST INTO THE NEARLY EMPTY METAL GRAIN BARREL HEAD FIRST WITH MY HEAD WAY DOWN BY THE BOTTOM. And Ji Hong, guess who I met down there at the bottom of the barrel, eye-to-eye. MISTER MOUSEY. Why is it that I keep having encounters with trapped mice? Anyways, MISTER MOUSEY was running around the bottom of that barrel, circle after circle, trying to escape and I will never forget the sound of his little feet scampering around the bottom of the barrel.....I can't remember what happened to MISTER MOUSEY but I do know that since then I have been terribly afraid of mice. I hate them and they make me want to puke.....

Anyway back to me and Mighty Mouse....What to do? I was tempted to wake Grandma and ask her to deal with it but I am pretty sure Grandma is more afraid of mice than I am. (Later, she told me and Auntie Emma that she would have just gone out to the car and driven back to Toronto. ) Anyways Grampa put on his thinking hat. His first thought was to go get MAGGIE THE MIGHTY HUNTING DOG, and put her in the bathtub with MIGHTY MOUSE. (Auntie Emma later thought that would have been a very hilarious scene: nearly blind and deaf Maggie chasing a very fleet and afraid mouse around the bathtub???) Nope, not a good idea. Then I spied a small plastic pail which I immediately saw as a temporary jail...then I went for a walk through the house to get ideas and in the big bedroom, I spied a small wicker basket....downstairs I got a record sleeve (the cardboard envelope that holds old records that noone listens to anymore with iPODs and all but which I cannot throw away) and I went upstairs and carefully trapped Mighty Mouse under the basket. Then I carefully slid the record cover under the basket slowly so Mighty Mouse could jump up on the record cover. Then I went away and made a cup of tea. When I got back I carefully lifted up the new jail and looked into the basket to see how Mighty Mouse was doing....AND HE WASN'T THERE.

Yikes. I peered again and again and the light was very dim but I couldn't see MIGHTY MOUSE!

I was going to wake Grandma at that point to see if she could see Mighty Mouse but on second thought that seemed to be a very stupid idea. So, just in case, I carefully carried the jail down the stairs, I almost tripped putting on my slippers, and then went outside with Maggie locked inside. In the dim early morning light I tried again to see Mighty Mouse but he had disappeared. Finally, I got to the grass just beside Yerpa's Shed and I figured what the heck so I lifted up the basked to give it a shake, just in case, AND MIGHTY MOUSE FLEW OUT OF THE BASKET, LANDED IN THE SOFT GRASS AND RACED TOWARDS THE POND! At that point, Grampa screamed, threw the wicker basked as far as he could and dropped the record cover and ran back to the safety of the house where he was going to drink 50 beers. Except there weren't 50 beers, in fact I'm not sure there were any beers and besides Grampa is not drinking beer at the moment. So I went and got may now cold cup of tea, warmed it in the microwave and then went and sit on the couch for awhile. Guess what? I STILL HATE MICE.

[Randy's Reviews-7-May-2007]