"Unless it poops droppings as big as pool balls I ain't paying it no attention." These were my words to Carolyn when she awakened me in the middle of the night and said there is a mouse in the house. She heard it rattling papers in the trash can on my side of the bed. A few moments later she turned on her lamp and I felt the air of one of her shoes whizzing by my head. Clunk; thunk. I rolled over on my back and in a few minutes we again heard the trash can rattle. Woosh ! The other shoe barely missed my nose. Whap; bang. This must have been all mousey could stand because after another hour long vigil by Carolyn he was no longer heard. The law has been laid down to me: No more eating a snack at bedtime. It was only a package of Lance peanut butter crackers but now I am denied even that small indulgence. She has banished my trashcan so henceforth I will have to sneak my snack before she comes home from work each evening and hide the wrapper under my pillow until morning.
This morning my bride offhandedly asked me "where are these mice coming from?" I thought for a moment and told her "Hobos". Then I had to explain that science has found a new off-shoot of the regular house-mouse species that has begun catching rides on trains as they move about the land. I told her it wasn't uncommon these days to see a bunch of mice sitting on top of boxcars as they went rumbling down the tracks. The mice sleep at night inside the freight cars and ride all day in the sunshine. When they get hungry, they jump off the train and visit houses such as ours along the tracks and I told her that the mouse would soon miss his wayward life and go hitch on the next train that stopped at at the nearby siding, all just like human hobos once did.
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Well, it is April Fools day so what was I supposed to tell her; go buy a trap and kill the little critter?
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