The other day I stumbled smack dab into a scene from a nature documentary.
I walked out onto the back deck and noticed my cats crouched in the driveway. They were in the middle of a rousing game of mouse hockey.
It's a favourite sport of theirs. The rules are simple: one cat will go out into the barn or field and return with a mouse, which it brings to the driveway and releases. The two cats will then bat the mouse around until one of them gets bored, at which point the mouse is decapitated, then
brought to the back door and left to be disposed of by the maintenance staff. (Which is to say, me.)
I get how it can be a favourite game of theirs. I must say, I do not share their enthusiasm.
For one thing, a headless mouse is not much fun to dispose of. In fact, it's downright gross. But that's not my main objection to mouse hockey.
I don't like the game because it just isn't very sporting.
It's not just that it's two against one. That would be unfair enough. But the two in this equation are - by comparison to the mouse - enormous. And heavily armed with razor-sharp fang and claw. All this firepower against a wee tiny beastie that has, as its main defence mechanism, the ability to scurry.
I mean, that's it for mice. They can scurry.
I would have loved to have been at the meeting where they assigned each animal its natural defences: "Okay, listen up, this meeting has already gone long and we still have to give out ways to defend yourselves. Skunks?
Where are the skunks? Oh, there you are. You get a powerful stench that you squirt out from under your tail, rendering any predator helpless and gagging." *(Skunks: "Awesome!")*
And they'd work through the list: "Gazelles? You get to run very, very fast. Bears? You'll be huge, plus you get giant claws and fangs. And ... I guess that's about it."
Mice: "Wait, what about us?"
"Let's see. Mice ... mice ... ah, there you are. You'll be very small and sort of cute, plus you can scurry."
Mice: "You mean, scurry as in lightning fast, blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of speed?"
"Well, not quite. It will be more a sort of ... amble. But did I mention you'll be small?"
Mice: "But we'll have razor-sharp tusks or something, right?"
"Um ... "
Mice: "Aw, crap."
So basically, in a natural world of predators and prey, mice fall into the category of "appetizers".
Now, I know it's hard to drum up a lot of sympathy for mice. I certainly don't want them in my house. They chew through just about anything and leave droppings everywhere and carry disease.
And as tiny and cute as they are, mice freak some people right out. I have a friend who will gently capture a fly or a spider in her house and release it into the wild. If she encountered a mouse she would run screaming for
the highest point in the room. If the mouse cornered her she would, without a single moment's hesitation, savagely beat it to death with a baseball bat.
Oh, she would feel bad afterwards, and possibly even say some sort of prayer for its soul* (God: "Really? For a mouse? Can you not see how busy I am?")*, but that would be the extent of her compassion.
And to be fair, part of the reason we employ cats is to make our home unattractive to mice. I don't have a problem if my cats kill a mouse. That's the natural order of things.
But still. I didn't need to watch them take such obvious delight in tormenting this poor little thing. So I waded into the fray.
I walked into the driveway and shooed the cats back. They retired to the grass at the edge, regarded me sullenly for having interrupted their fun, and waited for me to leave so they could get back at it.
I walked up to the mouse, which was basically lying there panting in terror, and nudged it towards some nearby bushes. I figured if it could make it into a thorny area, it had a sporting chance. Fair is fair.
The mouse sprang to life, scurried *over my foot* *(Me: "Gahhh!!!")*, and headed the opposite direction. Towards the house.
I tried, little buddy. I tried.
At that point, I went back into the house and got some paper towels. I didn't look back. I knew the game had resumed. And I knew that in a little while there would be a headless gift on the deck.
I guess sometimes, Mother Nature just isn't that fair.
*(Mice: "No kidding.")*
