When I was young (which, some may say was rather a long time
ago) my mum and dad gave my sister and I hamsters for Christmas. One of my
fondest memories is returning home one afternoon with my dad and sister, to
find my mum sitting on the floor with the paddling pool in the middle of our
lounge (void of water I hasten to add) with a highly... well, some would say
stressed, some would say bemused expression. You see our two female hamsters,
were not quite ‘sold as seen’. Turns out Sophie (I was a big BFG fan) was an unfortunately
named male, and Petal , well, she was still female, and had happily popped out
an array of mini-hamsters. Of course, Sprog and I were delighted, my parents
less so...my mum in particular disagreement based on the fact she had to catch
the little buggers as the climbed the chimney breast, and escaped through the
bars of the cage.
A decade later and I was still a lover of cute and fluffy
animals. Hims and I lived in a tiny one bedroom flat at this time of my life,
and based on the no cats/dogs rule one Saturday, Hims finally gave in a gave me
a little Russian hamster who I named ‘Oogie’. Oogie was awesome...if not
crazily small...and insanely fast. She lived quite happily in a ridiculously
oversized tanky-like thing...a tanky like thing that had a broken latch towards
the later years...a broken latch that Oogie decided to take advantage of.
Should’ve called her Houdini, as one day
she just vanished. I was slightly convinced that she had gone into the rubbish
sack and I had thrown her away...this led to a very sad Nu.
2.30am one Sunday morning and Hims woke me up saying the
Oogie had run past him in the lounge. Now, before I got my hopes up, I had to
remind myself this was the man who would wake me up during random nights (whilst
he continued to sleep) to tell me that ‘sandwiches taste better in the Sahara,
because there are no buildings around’. Turned however, on this occasion, he
was awake.
One hacked up sofa later and Oogie was returned. Turns out
she had made a lovely den inside Hims’ brother’s couch that was on loan to us
at the time. Oogie was fine for her adventure, the couch less so. However, after that point no more mini
critters was a general rule between us.
This was a rule I planned to keep. Having three cats, it isn’t
an argument that I needed to have with myself. I have no desire to have
mini-critters in my house or my life now. Unfortunately, life had other
ideas...and this morning whilst doing some sever house cleaning (yes, lesson
learnt here!) I went to the cupboard under the stairs to move my crisps from
under the stairs into a basket in the kitchen. Except I didn’t find the crisps
that I had left there. Oh no, I found nibbled empty packets. 24 packs of empty
packets.
I don’t think I live alone anymore.
I can’t hear any squeaking, I bravely flash lit my cupboard
but luckily did not see any movement, but the crisps didn’t shred and eat
themselves. Having three cats, I should just unleash their almighty claws and let
them catch dinner, but I hate to think of the mice suffering, equally though, I
hate to think of random rodents in my house. I decided to google how long mice
can survive in a home...turns out quite a while, turns out they breed quite
quickly too. Hummpf! The joys of an old house. I know you can get the nice
mouse traps, that just capture them for re-release, but how many traps does one
need? and where does one release them to? Are they like homing pidgeons? Do you
get homing mice? Have decided at this point to barricade the cupboard door and
keep instructing my pride of chats to meow loudly as they pass the hall way –
luckily MeowMeow is called her name for a reason and doesn't need much
persuasion.
On the plus side, this event has reminded me of a song that
my grandpa used to sing when I was little.
No comments:
Post a Comment