Today, not so great.
The story of why today sucked.
About three days ago I noticed that Pure Pop is the new home of a tiny cute little baby mouse, not the normal house kind but I think it's one of those field mice, the ones that can jump a ways... Regardless, I've been keeping my eye on it, and I didn't alert anyone at first cause I didn't know what Mike or anyone would want to do about it, I mean mice in a business place can't be acceptable right... Well this morning I walked down to find mike holding a box upside down against another flat box, apparently he had trapped the little guy in it and was going to take him outside and throw him in the snow. I gasped, he'd freeze to death! I watched in quiet agony as mike opened the door, when suddenly a little tiny mouse bottom poked out from the edge of the box, and then two little feet, mike was oblivious and I wasn't going to say anything "Jump!" I whispered, and like that he did, right down onto the floor and then quickly scurried to safety underneath the soda cooler. "Bravo, I thought, and laughed as mike walked outside and opened his empty box.
All was right in the world, or so I thought. Later I noticed the little guy making his way back to his hole behind the used CD's but instead of going to his safe place he made a detour behind the counter, and before long, Mike and Brooke were back on the case, trying to round him up, I watched with mild amusement at there attempts to lure him out, nothing really worked at first and I was beginning to think that this little dude was a survivor; but my amusement quickly turned to horror when he bolted out and right underneath Michael's boot heel,
crunch.
Mike jumped back, and everyone shouted, and there on the ground was my little guy, squeaking and jerking around wildly, his tiny little mouse body broken beyond repair.
Michael looked around, searching our faces for forgiveness, but all we could do was stand and stare at the suffering creature; suffering we'd all caused, either through wanton aggression, ignorance or simple apathy. No more than six seconds passed, but they felt like an eternity, Mr mouse was rolled almost on his back, his head jerking back and forth and his little eyes looking around with terror, his back seemed broken, his arms moved while his legs didn't... Someone said "do something", no one moved, and so I did the only thing that could be done, I stomped it's little mousy head, real hard with my shoe, but not before giving him a really long look; I was trying to telepathically apologize, I said "I'm so sorry." I doubt it worked.
There wasn't anything else I could do I figured; besides put him out of his misery. He stopped flailing right after that, and everyone just sort of stood there, I picked up his tiny little lifeless body, and put it in the garbage. I swear I was the last person in that whole store that wanted anything bad to happen to him, I had a lot of fun watching him run around, especially when he'd scare customers.
That is why today sucked.
The rest of the day felt so morose; mike felt really bad I could tell, he's not a mean spirited guy, he just wanted the mouse out of the store, and then accidently mortally wounded the little fella, after that he just sort of turned around and did some ordering for an hour or so and didn't talk to anyone, I went in the backroom with a hammer and de-iced the freezer box for about 20 minutes. I was going to write some sort of "what I learned", "here's the meaning" sort of closer, but frankly, I don't really have one; maybe just "suffering is inevitable", or "watch where you step."
6 comments:
bummer- i killed a big nasty bug thats was crawling around my tub- i felt bad about it after but it was creeping me out- but i'm not 100% sure that he died, because I scooped him up all gentle like and flushed him. it was actually a little funny watching him swim about in the spiraling bowl. but there you go. life sucks, you kill some shit, and then you die. wordjb
you kill some lives, then life kills you... how poetic. like the spring flowers, we come up, we bloom, only to be cut down again but the bittle winter snows...;)
not death, but suffering is sad! i think you made the right decision to put mousie out of its misery.
"Playing God", a similar story... as a child, I stuck a stick into a hole in the ground, soon realizing that I had speared a snake. I pulled the bloody snake out of the hole to discover that I had inflicted a rather serious wound that most likely would have caused it to bleed to death or at least acquire some type of infection. So my sister, neighborhood playmates, and I laid the poor creature on a log and pounded its head with a large rock until it was dead. It was sad and oddly exhilarating. I don't know if I could do the same now.
michelle
those feelings of exhileration i remember them, i killed a few birds in my day; it was a strange feeling of horror and power, it all ended one day when i shot a pigeon off the steeple of the methodist church next to my house with a pellet gun. it didn't die, but it's wing was shattered and the bones where sticking out; when i aproached it it flapped it wings and sprinkled blood all over me; i took it home and tried to take care of it, i bandaged the wing, and put it in a box with some hay, it died after a couple days later, after that i never shot at anything again...
Well, Tanner, you told the story well. It was a sad thing to watch and participate in the death of such a cute little mouse. I came home and told Casey the story, which starts out innocent and ends in a dumpster-not what he was expecting. Michael wasn't trying to kill the mouse by relocating him (and I imagine 90% of the rest of business owners would've set traps and done just that) but was trying to do anything he could to avoid killing the little mouse while not upsetting customers. It's probably some kind of code violation to have mice in public places, and most of the customers are not interested in indulging our love for sweet mice. I know none of us wanted him dead and I think we all felt pretty bad about the sad end to the sweet mouse. But you made the right decision to end its pain.
-Brooke
Thanks Brooke, i completely understand mike's stance on the issue, i didn't mean to make him out to be anything mean or nasty, if anything just humanity on a whole... it was a tragic turn of events that was as i saw it a bit of a microcosm of the way the world works... I know no one wanted anything bad to happen to the mouse.
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