mousy

Yesterday was an amazing day, weather-wise. So we had the doors open all day.

I was dozing on the couch in the afternoon, watching some history channel program, when I felt some commotion at my feet. When I looked down, I saw this:

The cat who loves to bring me live presents has upgraded from lizards and crickets to mice.

So I went to pick it up, but thought better of it and grabbed my kitschy dishwashing gloves in case it tried to bite me or pee on me. You know, hantavirus. Of course when I tried to grab it, it ran under the desk. I started moving crap out of the way to try and get to it, and it kept slipping away. At one point I literally had my hand on it, and when I opened it up, the damn thing was GONE. Disappeared.

I gave up the search for a while, and figured I'd go try to find a 'catch and release' trap. Either that, or Pumpkin would find it before I did.

When I came home, I found Pumpkin asleep on the couch and the mouse curled up in a ball in the middle of the floor. Not a good sign. I picked it up and it didn't really move, but it was alive and looked intact except for a little blood on its ear. So I took it outside and put it on the grass near the fence, hoping it'd run back to its home.

When I came back inside, I noticed a little bit of blood on the tile. Ugh, not good.

This morning I went outside to check and see if it was still there, and... it was. It had died sometime in the night. I felt so bad. I wish I would have made it a warm bed instead of putting it outside in the cold to die.

I mean, it's just a mouse, but it was a cute mouse. And it certainly didn't deserve to be slowly killed by my damn cat. At least she could have eaten it.