Sunday, October 25, 2009

Chasing Mice

It was dark in the WalMart parking lot, but I saw the little critter skitter beneath the car beside ours. "There's a mouse!" I said.
"Where?" my 10-year-old wanted to know. He craned his neck, but the shadows were too deep if you didn't know where to look.
"I'll show you," I said, starting the car and looping it in a big circle. Yep, the mouse scurried away from the sound of our engine and hid behind another car's tire.
"I see it!" Monkey hollered. Then the mouse made a dash for the next car and disappeared underneath.
We followed it around for a couple of minutes, watching it scurry here, there and back again. I wondered what it would be like to be that small and running around a parking lot. If car started up, would you have time to move? Where did it come from? Had it run clear out of the store or from some fields far away? Why would it choose a parking lot? Was there a lot of food here, or was it acting on a Mouse Dare?
Then Monkey reminded me, "Shouldn't we go home soon?"
Oh, yeah. I shifted into drive and pulled slowly away, because I didn't want that mouse running to hide under my tires, then I pulled out of the parking lot, leaving Mighty Mouse to take care of himself.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love your mouse story. It's EXACTLY the sort of thing I do and I'm so grateful to know other people persist in mouse-looking experiences. Isn't it a good thing that we have children to remind us to go home?

Shirley Bahlmann said...

Yes, it is good for reminders, but sometimes I'd rather not go home. One of my favorite daydreams is to simplify my life to the point I'd be able to live out of a backpack. It would be rather hard to play the piano, though, so it remains a daydream.