Are you a man or a mouse
Is an outdated phrase
Quite sexist when you think
Sounds strange these days
We’re wise enough to know
We have to be brave
Can’t hide away
Or go live in a cave
Need to get away from the dark
Walk away from the pain
Embrace the future
The past has no gain
Courage is a friend
It has invested in you
Waits behind the cloud
Waits for your cue
After courage comes happiness
Elusive though it seems
Don’t give up on life
Don’t give up on your dreams
Life is for the taking
It’s yours and it’s mine
Reach out – be brave
Be strong this time
Walk down the long road
Move slowly if you must
At the end of it you’ll find
Love and light and trust
If things are bad
And you’re feeling really low
Then upwards my friend
Is the only way to go
So, no more darting about
With frustration and fear
No more twitching whiskers
No more pink little ears
Go into the light
Get out of the house
Go after your dreams
Stop being a mouse.
Things In My Head 
Hey, that’s specieist!
I just got rid of a mouse infestation in this place (with help from some neighbourhood cats) and I sure didn’t find them cowardly. Sure they run for cover when they see you coming, but what would you do faced with an apex predator around 5,000 times your size? The female that made a nest in the laundry stood her ground defending it until I scooped her into an ice-cream container, even though there were no pups in it.
Are you this brave?
So if someone asked me if I was a man or a mouse I’d have to reluctantly admit I’m a man, because I’m nowhere near as brave as a female mouse (or a female rabbit for that matter).
(BTW, I used non-lethal traps and released them on vacant land in an industrial area about 2km away. I doubt the cats were so merciful though.)
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The mice where I live now, in Blackpool, are much shyer and more polite than the mice that I used to know, in Liverpool. Seagulls also have varying levels of cheekiness. The seagulls in Llandudno are like East End thugs (I saw a seagull take a whole cheese pasty from a man’s mouth there) and in Blackpool, they can be a mixed bunch, there are some Mafia factions, some are a bit more regal. I dealt with a mouse infestation by putting cotton wool buds soaked with Olbas Oil in the corners of the room and then some. Basically, I just soaked the whole flat. It kept them away. Mice do not like Euycalyptus. Have you ever had a rat infestation? In my younger days, living in dubious housing, I once woke up to find that a rat (Mervin, I named him) had taken a full pat of butter from the kitchen table, hid it behind the sofa in the living room and put some toilet roll over it to hide it. I bet there was more than one of him. That had to be teamwork. A dozen Mervins. Or maybe he was a genuis.
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I wouldn’t say ‘infestation’ – at least not since I was a kid and the neighbour demolished his rat infested garage and they relocated to our house – but I have had some individual rats move in that I’ve had to persuade to move out in various ways. Most recently, when I was dealing with the mouse plague, a rat I’d heard in the ceiling a couple of times came down and stuffed itself into one of the mouse traps I was using. They really like peanut butter.
Consider yourself lucky you’ve only lost butter.
When I lived in a share house in Neutral Bay in the early 80s I used to keep my hash in the pantry so any of my housemates could help themselves if the fancy took them (i.e. every day), but when a 14 gram lump wrapped in plastic disappeared completely the day after I put it there I thought someone was abusing the privilege. Everyone denied taking it.
Shortly afterwards we got rid of a rat that had showed up in the kitchen, but I didn’t put two and two together until several months later when we cleaned out the pantry.
Hidden in a little recess in a corner I found what was left of the missing hash. It was down to less than five grams, the cling wrap was gone and it was covered in parallel twin gouges consistent with rat incisors. No wonder that rat seemed so mellow as we chased it out of the house.
My funniest rat story involves a lawyer who was an activist colleague of mine. She had a pet rat she used to carry everywhere, usually under her jacket. During the establishment of the Kings Cross injecting room we were at a meeting that included the NSW Health Minister, loads of medical people, senior police, high ranking bureaucrats and various other stakeholders. There was a ten minute ‘recess’ after Louise’s rat popped its head out of her collar to see what was going on, prompting loud screams from the Health Department official sitting next to her. A similar incident during a bail hearing a few weeks later had her threatened with contempt of court charges if she ever brought the rat into a courtroom again.
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Great stories. Rats are intelligent and affectionate and it’s a shame they get such a bad press and that they only live a few years. Yes, peanut butter for rats and mice is like catnip for cats. You say the cling film was gone? Had he eaten that too? I’m not surprised, mice eat plasticine with relish. Yeah, I’m weighing it up, would I rather lose butter or drugs to a rat ? Butter every time. We only got rid of Mervin because we filled in the hole in the skirting board with Polyfilla. Problem was, he would eat through it while it was still wet. So we had to put a hair dryer on it. He was still too fast for us. So we put vinegar and all kinds of weird stuff in the Polyfilla, hoping to put him off ( but he was thinking of the butter) Nothing seemed to put him off. It was a battle of wills in the end. Eventually we dried the polyfilla before he could eat through it. I’m glad your hash rat (because that’s what he is) had some fun and experienced some mellow times. Hash Rat sounds like it could be a punk band.
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Nice post..
Thanks for sharing..
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Thankyou.
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