Waffle and the mouse

There’s a mouse in my shed.
I know this because I keep finding little cylindrical black pellets of mouse poo around the bin of hen food. It’s a metal storage bin and as such, there’s no way that a tiny mouse could lift the lid in order to gain access. However, I have been known to drop the odd grain or two when I’m staggering around the shed of a Monday morning, bleary-eyed and half asleep.

I wouldn’t be a huge fan of mice.

I know this because I once walked around for ten minutes oblivious to the fact that I had a mouse in my shoe. Honestly, even now I remember thinking, as I wiggled my toes, that there must be water in the tip of the shoe. You might imagine my surprise when I removed the shoe for an examination and out jumped a mouse. Me and mice have never had the same relationship since.

Waffle loves mice.

I know this because each and every time I visit the shed for hen food or for wellies or for logs for the fire, aul Waff has to come with. He is increasingly agitated as he sniffles and snuffles his way around the shed and its interior components. He also yips and whines in excitement as he closes in on the mouse (or mice) idling amongst the logs or stacked plant pots or empty cans of paint. Ordinarily, this doesn’t bother me one bit. I appreciate that me and mice aren’t friends and so to potentially have Waffle elicit a frisson of fear among the furry masses, is somehow mildly satisfying. Although if only the mice knew that Waffle couldn’t bring himself to hurt even a fly, they’d be much less inclined to hide in the first place.

Waffle could be excommunicated from the shed.

I know this – or at least I expected it to become a reality – because Waffle keeps knocking things down during his attempted rodenticides. First it was a large stack of plant pots, then it was a stack of cardboard boxes containing old magazines and newspapers and finally, it was the large metal stepladder which I had propped up against the inside wall of the shed. It was this latter accident which irked the most as it clipped my ankle when it fell and scared the life out of me.

“Maybe calm down a bit, eh,” I suggested to Waffle after the stepladder fell and after my heart-rate had returned to normal.

Mice aren’t risk free.

I know this because I Googled it. As well as chewing up stuff (like Waffle used to do when he was a nipper) mice also spread diseases like Salmonella and Listeria through their urine, droppings, and bedding.

Their days are numbered.

I know this. Fact.

I also know this because after the discovery of the first cylindrical pellets, I never fail to check my wellies for a mousey presence prior to wearing. The first time a mouse turns up in a wellie, all hell will break loose. Poison will be purchased, traps will be set and, as God is my witness, I will buy a cat. Strangely enough, the only thing which has prevented me from buying a cat before now is Waffle. It’s not that I’m afraid he’ll chase the cat but rather, I’m concerned the cat will bully Waffle. And I could really do without all the associated whining.

Also, it would be just like Waffle to catch something from the mice and then a different kind of hell would break loose and it would go something like this…

“What do you mean you knew we had mice in the shed and you didn’t do anything about it? Are you senile?”

As the old folks would say, there’s always something. In this case the something is a mouse in my shed. Thankfully, as yet, it’s not in my shoe.