I’m not sure how it happened. The mice live in a fortress that we keep in a spare bedroom upstairs or on the island in the kitchen for kids to take a peak.
They’ve been very happy. As I cleaned The Fortress this past weekend I found myself wondering how long the mice would actually live. We’ve been taking good care of them if I do say so myself and I thought maybe they’d last a whole year or longer. After Black Eye’s neuter he has been enjoying his life with his wife and daughter once again and they get plenty of exercise and fresh food.
That is…
until last night.
I need to clarify that it is imperative I keep an eye on The Fortress. Kainoa has opened the cage before and I have saved those mice from toddler terrorism in the past. Rudy loves to watch the mice scurry around and we have two cats. Enough said. This is a lovely home for them, but clearly it is not without it’s dangers.
We found The Fortress tipped over last night. I don’t know who did it, but that’s beside the point.
The mice….are no longer with us.
Maile and Laina found them laying on the floor of the room and I’m still unclear as to exactly what happened. The scene was not a gruesome one, but sad nevertheless. The girls were upset. Maile started talking about how she was going to write all about the tragedy in her journal at school, Laina cried about the bad dreams she said she was going to have, and Kainoa just repeated everything I said, “ohhhh nooo…I sooo sawee…I sooo saweee.”
And naturally I started crying too, because that’s what grown women are supposed to do when they have three distraught children….just crumble to the floor along with them. I told Pat I was sad because I was thinking about how panicked the mice must have felt getting dumped out of their home, but he seemed a little more concerned about how our kids are probably scarred for life.
They’re totally going to remember this.
I want to punch myself in the face for not being more aware of what was going on upstairs yesterday.
But that would hurt.
And I don’t care what any of you say, my girls are going to the pet store to pick out some new mice. I refuse to allow the Mouse-Tastrophe to be their last interaction with animals they so enjoy.
In other news…I found my cat!
Doesn’t she look happy!?! (Or maybe guilty).