Why Didn't I Bring My Carving Knife?

I got a sudden urge to see some mice today.

So I did.

Stupid?  The answer to that question, only time will tell. . .

Yes, against every recommendation in the dreaded book, I drove my car unsupervised to the pet shop.  You see,  I was supposed to have a "helper" who would have paved the way for me so that my exposure experience would have been controlled.

But instead I drove up willy-nilly and hopped out of the car without so much as a second thought.  I walked around the dog and cat stuff - all the while keeping  one eye on that "other" area of the store. . . you know. . . the part with the glass aquariums. . . the ones that don't hold fish . . .

And pretty soon I was walking by the hermit crabs. . .  and the parakeets. . . and the ferrets. . . and then came the aisle -THE aisle - that started with the guinea pigs.   And thanks to Archie I knew I could soldier on and try to find the pig-rodent-thing in its little igloo. . .

But over and down to the right were the things I came to see.

And when I say things, I mean THINGS!

Now they were white. . . I'll give you that. . . but there were about ten of them in the same aquarium and EVERY ONE OF THEM WAS IN MOTION AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Holy Shit, those things move!  Three of them were knocking each other over on the exercise wheel, one was crawling up the walls, and the others were in a constant state of frenzied motion crawling all over each other!

And the tails!

Oh how I wish I were the farmer's wive and had a carving knife at the ready!  (But then again, if the mice had been blind and if perhaps there were just three of them, they wouldn't have been so gross. . .imagine how that nursery rhyme would have changed if the poor woman saw a gaggle of SIGHTED mice. . .)

But you would have been proud of me.

I didn't run.   I didn't scream.  I didn't pass out from from terror.   I watched. . . trying to think of them like happy mice at a playground.

Happy, happy, mice :)

Then I calmly walked away.

And after about two minutes I decided to stroll back and watch the happiness once more.

At which point I wanted to throw up.

And so I quickly paid for my bag of dog food and left.

I think it's time to start carrying
a carving knife around with me. . .