Of Mice and ......... Mousers

I recently learned that my Maine Coon cat, Jinx, is a great mouser.  He’s an indoor cat, always has been, and one of those types of pets that has never met a stranger.  Long fur, brown, grey and black tabby stripes with white chest and “boots”, soft as a bunny’s fur, as big as a small dog (seriously, he’s huge), and more loyal than I ever knew a cat could be... that’s my Jinx.  I’ve heard Maine Coon cats described as the most dog-like cats of all the breeds, and I believe it.

The other day, he caught a mouse that was in the house.  As far as I know, he’d never seen one.  I’d always read that his breed was supposed to be extremely good mousers, but had never had the opportunity to “test that theory” (thank goodness). 

I live with my sister these days.  She has two cats, and I brought two cats with me when I moved in 4 years ago.  All of them are indoor cats except for one, who is that cat that always wants on the other side of the door... you know the type.  Jinx and the other cats had been vigilantly scouting and standing guard in the kitchen for a couple of weeks, but we hadn’t seen any signs to forewarn the adventure that was about to take place.

A small mouse ventured out from somewhere in the kitchen that day, and the cats scrambled.  Jinx chased it into the living room, behind the couch, and finally came up with the prize.  As all cats do, he proceeded to play with his capture... catching it in his mouth or under one of his giant silver-dollar -sized paws, and then releasing it.  I instantly tested the ability to levitate.  Not succeeding for more than a second, I jumped on the couch and yelled for my son, who happened to be home that day.  He gallantly came to my rescue, finished killing the mouse, and tossed it into the woods behind the house. 

Jinx was very puzzled by the quick disappearance of his mouse.  He kept going around the house sniffing like a beagle, trying to figure out what happened.  You could almost see the conversation going on in his head, “Let me see... I had it here.... then I took it there... then I was playing with it here, here and here.  Then there was a scuffle and the human did something.  Then it just disappeared.  But I still smell it.  It must be hiding under the rug.  No?... maybe it’s hiding here... or here.”  Nose to the floor, tracing and retracing his steps, finally he gave up and just stretched out on the hearth.  Every few minutes he’d get up and try again, seemingly convinced that he had simply overlooked something… somewhere.  This went on for about half an hour.

Jinx is a “talker”.  Sometimes he sounds like a Siamese cat, with his long, loud meows.  He talks about lots of things, from food, to wanting to be petted, to fussing at the other cats, to trying to get attention about most anything... so when the mouse “disappeared into thin air”, he was indeed “talking” about the entire thing.

Several days pass by and while we’d notice one or the other of the cats with their nose to the bottom of the pantry door, we hadn’t seen any mad scrambles to catch a scampering something.  So, of course, we forgot about it... more or less.  

We had one of our family gatherings this past weekend, and a batch of No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (a family favorite) had been requested.  I needed to check to make sure I had the all the ingredients, so went to the pantry and opened the door.  Jinx was following me around, as usual.  Normally, when I open the pantry door, he just stands back and waits for me to do whatever I’m going to do, and then wraps himself around my legs and ankles again.  Not this time.  As I opened the pantry door, he got in front of me, meowing and sticking his nose or paw into every crack between the small bins we have sitting on the floor in there.  Mouse!  Had to be!

Most of those bins hold spices, but a couple hold things like seasoning packets, cookie mixes left over from Christmas, Jell-O and the like.  There is also a small rolling rack of shelves that fits underneath the bottom shelf of the pantry that holds things like Pop Tarts, crackers, and popcorn on the top, and extra condiments or pickles and such on the bottom two shelves. 

Jinx was so excited that, as I started removing the bins one by one, he started sticking his giant paws in there to help move things around.  I do NOT like mice.  I come from a long line of Mouse-Haters (more on that later), so I come by it naturally, and it’s not something I can control very easily.  I was alone in the house this particular day, and so, was extremely cautious as I pulled one bin after another out of the pantry.  Jinx got more frantic, and poked his paws and nose into every nook and cranny I opened up.  Removing the last few bins was more a case of (Step 1) remove cat, (Step 2) remove bin, and repeat.  By this time all the other cats knew something was up, and were trying to get in for a look-see. 

Then suddenly they weren’t. 

There had been no scramble, no racing off after some scampering thing, nothing.  They just vanished.  Not understanding, I called them back.  When they didn’t come, I went looking for them, only to find Jinx in the living room, playing with a small mouse that was still wiggling occasionally, as the other cats looked on... just in case he lost it.  I instantly jumped up on the couch.  Logic told me that Jinx had this under control, that a small 2 inch long creature could not possibly hurt me.  But logic has nothing to do with anything at that moment.  I was in a fix.  I was the only person in the house, so I had to deal with this.  I’d stand on the couch, and then get back down, determined to do something, and then jump up on the nearest something when Jinx dropped the mouse again. 

This entire time I was texting my sister, who was at work, about the whole round of events.  The phone rings, and it’s her.  I’m standing on the couch, talking to my sister, and watching Jinx catch the mouse, let it go, see it wiggle, then slams his giant paw down on it again and catches it again.  Then my sister says something that makes me feel in control of the entire situation, “Get the fly swatter!”  With eyes wide open at my shock of not having thought of this in the first place, I get the fly swatter, finish off the mouse the next time Jinx drops it, scoop it up (on the swatter, of course) and pitch it outside… and breathe a sigh of relief!  Of course, this sent Jinx into his “search for the disappearing mouse” all over again. 

My son was at work at the time, but I had told him I’d leave everything out of the pantry until he got home so he could check and see if we had a small mouse hole in the back somewhere, and so he did.  He pulled the small rolling cart out and helped clean up the mess that was on the floor in there.  We had discovered some mouse damage in some of the bins, so we wanted to make sure nothing on the cart was damaged before putting it back inside.  There were a couple boxes of Pop Tarts lying on the top, so I bent over and peeked inside and saw that the mice had been in there, and picked up the box, saying that we needed to toss that out for sure.  My son, standing opposite me to the cart, reached out and in the calmest possible voice said, “Mom, hand me that box for a second.” I looked at him with puzzlement, and he quickly said (again, in a calm, but more forceful way this time) “Mom, let me see that box for just a minute”, so I handed him the Pop Tart box, still puzzled at what he wanted with it.  Once he was certain he had full control of the box and I had let go (mere seconds), he said, as he headed out the back door, “There’s a mouse in this box”.  Stunned, and frightened all at the same time, I went and (yes, you guessed it) stood on the couch for a few minutes.  When my son came back into the house, my sister asked him almost rhetorically, “You DO know what would have happened if you told your Mom that the mouse was in the box before taking it from her, don’t you?”, at which point he nodded, smiled, and tossed his hands straight up in the air, indicating that I would have thrown that mouse and box to heaven only knows where in my haste to get rid of it.  And he was right!!!!!!!!

Like I said before, I come from a long line of women that feared mice, so it’s part of my genes, I think.  Mom was the one that discovered that a fly swatter can become a weapon of mass destruction.

Back when we were just kids, Mom (just as fearful of mice as I am now) saw a mouse in her kitchen.  We didn’t have cats back then, so she got the only thing she could think of at the time, the fly swatter, and flailed at that mouse until it was dead.  That swatter was one of the old kind with the metal screen for the swatter part, so it was a little tougher than most of the flimsy plastic ones you can buy today.  So just remember, Fear + Fly Swatter = Dead Mouse... EVERY time.  Well, every time that the theory has been tested anyway. 

Mom tells a story about how when she was a girl, they had an old barn cat that kept vigil outside, and when they’d spot a mouse in the house, Grandmother would yell, “GO GET THE CAT!!!!!”  Mom would run and grab the cat from outside and bring him in.  He always knew why he was being brought inside (as that was the only reason), and would hunt until he found and killed the mouse.  Once he did his job, he was put back outside again. Maybe they didn’t know about fly swatters back in those days. 

We finally figured out that the mice had made a hole underneath the sink, and took care of the situation, but mice being the invaders that they are, and with us living in the country, it won’t be the last time we have to deal with this sort of thing.  I’ll keep the fly swatter handy.

"Trouble with mice is, you always kill 'em."

- John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men -

One can only hope, Mr. Steinbeck, one can only hope!!!  ..... And get the cat!!!!