Xmas 1992

Not a Creature was Stirring, not even a

      My wife had gone to sleep early on Christmas eve, so she got up at 5:15 Christmas morning to open boxes which had been sent from overseas, and set out the Christmas presents.  At 5:30, I awoke to sounds of our cat running around the hallway, obviously chasing something.  I could also hear my wife in the kitchen opening a can of cat food after which she walked into the hall to call the cat. I yelled, "Dorothy, stay out of the hallway, the cat is chasing something."  She hurried into the living room and shut all of the doors.
     About that time, my son opened his bedroom door into the hall to let the dog out of his room.  I told him to keep the dog in his room.  Since the dog and cat don't get along, I didn't need the added confusion.
      The action in the hall continued - longer than normal when the cat is playing with a mouse.  So I started to worry that it was something else (LIKE A SNAKE)I  Finally, I turned on my bed lamp. The cat must have thought that I was coming after her because she instantly turned around and ran away, while a little mouse scurried along my bedroom wall and into the attached bathroom.
      I told my son to put the dog outside and see it he could find a shoebox (some of which are always around our house for storage).  He came into my bedroom barely awake to report he couldn't find a shoebox, and said, "What do our want one for, anyway?"  I explained that there was mouse in the bathroom and I wasn't going to let the cat get it.  I asked him to get his mother and tell her to bring a shoebox.
      Dorothy arrived asking what was happening.  I explained the situation and at that point we could see the mouse between the door and the frame.  "Oh, isn't he cute."  exclaimed my wife. "You know, Dad,"  my son said, "this is rather tacky."  Puzzled, I asked what he meant.  "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."
      My wife and I looked at each other saying, "So who's going to catch the mouse?"  Finally, my wife said, "Give me the box, I don't mind mice.  I'll catch him."  So she went into the bathroom and shut the door.  I heard, "Here mousie, mousie, EEEK, come on mousie, EEEK."  The shrieks occurred only when the mouse ran directly at her.  At one point she told me that mouse was hopping.  I told her that in that case, it was probably not a standard house mouse, and could be one of the endangered types. That meant that we should do something to get him away from our cat (and other cats).
      Dorothy wasn't having any luck, so I offered to get a larger box.  I took it and a broom into the bathroom. I looked at the mouse and it did appear to have a more pointed nose than the standard house mouse.  Between the box, its lid and the broom we (mainly my wife) managed to get the mouse into the box and the lid on.
      "So now what do we do?" Dorothy asked.  I told her I didn't think we could call the Conservation Commission at 6 a.m. on Christmas.  So, I told her to get dressed, we'd take it out bush. As we left, my son was singing, "I'm dreaming of a normal Christmas, just like the ones I've never had." - a slight exaggeration, although there have been other out-of-the ordinary Christmases at our house.
     We drove about 10 kilometers out of town, found some fairly dense scrub and placed the box on the ground.  Dorothy wanted a photo, so after she focused the camera on the lid, I lifted it off, she snapped a picture and the mouse hopped about 18 inches into the air and a meter or so into the bush.  Yes, it was a hopping mouse -according to a reference book we consulted later, possibly a Spinifex hopping mouse.
We returned home to open our presents.