A Mouse Committs Suicide in Scout's Water Bowl

A Mouse Commits Suicide in Scout’s Water Bowl

It happened Saturday morning. I came into the kitchen as usual with Scout. Went over and got my one pill that I take (doxycycline...50 mg.) for adult acne which they seem to call Rosacea. Grabbed a piece of bread and ran it through some Hummus. I was afraid I would have bad hummus breath but my options were limited. I couldn’t have cheese with the bread or just stand alone cheese which would coat my stomach because you can’t take dairy products with doxycycline. So I ate the bread and hummus, went back to the refrigerator, choked back a swig of fish oil—I have high cholesterol—and then poured a glass of water from the filtered jug—I prefer seltzer but we had gone through two cases in a week or 10 days—and then went back and took my doxycycline. So I was ready to take Scout out and was heading for the side door when I glanced down at Scout’s water bowl which stands pressed back against the kitchen cabinet next to the side door and there it was. A mouse. A dead mouse floating face up—or half a face up—I could see one of its eyes which in my memory was open. And its little body seemed to be just floating at an angle. But clearly it had drowned trying to get a drink of water. My first reaction was not heroic. I screamed. It scared the you know what out of me. Scout, a rescue, and very skittish, had been trotting along by my side knowing that this was our time together--jumped back. She hates loud noise. I called for Jeff, my wonderful trusty companion, and he came running. After the big scare it seemed funny. I mean a mouse had committed suicide in Scout’s water bowl. The mouse that had been eating through our cakes, breads, tortes even our fruit if we left it out, was dead. And we didn’t have to think about putting a trap out. It did it on its own. I guess this had the feeling of the mouse surrendering or God knows what. But after the fear came the laughter. Jeff grabbed the big bowl up, opened that side door and went very quickly looking for somewhere to dump it. He finally settled on a place behind the tool shed that Jeff had built all by himself years earlier that sits illegally on our neighbors land. (He did not know it was not really his land at the time but that is for another story which we will probably call Adverse Possession) . And the mouse was gone. Scout and I leashed up and out we went to the car for our morning walk. Who knew so much could occur in the space of about 10 minutes before even officially starting our day?