‘mousegate’

The year was 1995 and my parents had just announced their divorce to us, after dinner, when ‘The Simpsons’ was over. 

My sister and I sat in our poofy orange and white leather seats surrounding the round, Formica-lined dinner table beneath a hanging wicker lamp, quietly listening to my father calmly explain that they weren’t meant to stay together and they loved us very much. 

It was weird for us kids. Our home life was always consistently full of upheaval anyway so one part of my brain was accustomed to the inevitable emotional shut down, and the other filled to the brim with the typical uncertainty and sadness that I imagine any kid feels when they hear Mom is moving out. 

It started civil as they frequently do; Mom would stay with her parents and Dad would stay in the house since it was technically his mother’s that we were squatting in. His Mom, my Grammy, had essentially gifted her house to them while she went on to a posh condo in Thousand Oaks, CA. I think she had some money from a lawsuit in the 80’s when some pharmaceutical she had been a guinea pig on backfired and messed up, so she could afford to give us the leg-up out of the fairly scary side of east-LA rentals. We were now in Ventura county, a promise land that not only had greenbelts and great schools, but super-cool perks like Malibu, the PCH and beautiful local beaches. 

As things heated up between my folks over the first few months of the divorce, my middle school experience was going better than I had initially counted on – I had a few friends, a decent clique, my self esteem from a quiet weirdo blossoming into an awkward but sometimes cute tween. 

There was one portion of my middle school experience that I was most excited about thanks to television; it seemed so ‘grown up’ and real in opportunity for tween fame: The Science Fair. I had never participated or seen one before and it had me bubbling with the self perceived notion of middle school glory – I was gonna knock this shit outta the park. After asking around a bit I learned about the ‘ol ‘learned response’ experiment – where you set up a mouse in a maze, and see if it learns where it’s supposed to go with a reward system of cheese. My Dad, the artist, always had foam core board at his disposal and he even built a pretty solid little maze for me, measuring probably 16″x18.” Next step was the mouse – so we popped into the local pet store and bought a tiny white female mouse, some food, and a sweet little cage with a pink base and white bars. I was delighted by my new little friend, documented her food and growth and started assembling the plan where I could start my scientific method and study. 

One morning, barely brightened by the sun yet, I heard squeaking. I sat up in bed and looked around, wondering if the cat brought in a bat or something (again) when I heard a very high pitched, very loud squeak distinctly from my mouse’s cage. I hit the light and peered in. 

My one tiny singular scientific muse had been either purchased pregnant, or I was witness to the first ever rodent immaculate conception. She’d had babies, like a bunch of ’em, all squirming and pink, eyeless and ugly. Now I knew the right word to think – shit.

We had a five days on-five days off schedule between my parents and it was now time for my sister, me, and my new mom+brood to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the next five days. The babies were just wiggling pink blobs still a few days in, and not knowing what else to do I left them all in with Mama and figured the experiment could continue when the babies were old enough to be left alone.*

**Yes, I worried about the mama mouse leaving her kids alone, like a human parent. Let’s remember the education I had received up till this point, mm’k? 

At this particular moment in the story it seems wise to mention that during these years my grandfather had the pride and joy of his life in his dog: a black and white rat terrier named Otis who was whip-smart, affectionate, charming to adults, but vicious. There was an instance where my grandfather heard poor Otis hollering and whining in the backyard and when my Grandpa found the noise he found Otis, wrestling the shit out of a skunk, Otis’s face and body dripping with skunk spray and blood. The damn dog wouldn’t let go no matter what the skunk threw at him, and I’m not sure how much yelling, hose-spraying and kicking my grandpa did to separate them but the story still goes down as legend when he told it, despite it taking quite some time for Grandpa to find the humor in it. The dog got tomato baths for a week, the mutilated skunk got flung over the fence with a shovel. 

Otis sure loved the smell of that cage, and jumped and bounded at me from the second I entered the house, barking his little head off until I could lock the new family in my room. We played this game for a solid couple weeks, back and forth. Once all the little mice were big enough I think I named each one but could never keep track, there were a total of 12 mice, the babies catching up to the Mama in size rapidly. I started thinking of different things I could use all the mice for and switch up my ‘experiment,’ but to be honest my interest was waning rapidly. The home life was getting turbulent and it was getting harder and harder to focus on school as my parents dove head-first into the wild world of lawyers and vitriol that 10-ish years of a horrifically bad marriage can bring out. I had set the mouse maze in my closet and closed the door, only paying attention to the mice to feed and water them. 

It had probably been about a month when it was once again time to pack up for the week and head to Grandma and Grandpa’s with Mom, mice in tow. I beat back the beast Otis to get the cage to my room and close the door, as per usual.

This evening, for the first time, Otis had started to actually lose his marbles at my door, barking and scratching. My grandfather, confused, kept putting the dog outside, but before long he’d bring his favorite lap dog back in and then the cycle would begin anew of this dog going absolutely ape trying to get into my room. My mother finally looked at me and told me to go check on the mice, see if there’s any reason now why Otis would be sniffing something special. 

I walked in the room and looked around, glanced at the at the cage, (irritated at having to leave MTV for a minute,) and it seemed like nothing special had happened. On the way out I checked the inside of the cage before leaving and counted, but there weren’t as many mice. Two were missing. My stomach sank.

Oh God. Grandpa is gonna kill me.

I searched for the missing mice fervently, moving the bed and furniture around to find the escapee’s.. but I couldn’t find them. I glanced back at the cage one last time and there was another one that had squeezed through the tiny white bars, dangling between the two, about to drop out the other side! I was too afraid to pull it out so I waited until it got through and I threw it back in the cage, put a towel over the whole thing and then went running to my Mom. 

“Mom! The mice are getting out of the cage!” I very quietly, but urgently, said.

Her eyes grew and I could tell that she had the exact same thought I had moments prior: Oh God. Dad is going to kill me.

Obviously not that he would, but he was the king of his castle and frankly wasn’t enthusiastic about me bringing mice in.. we had a very strict agreement that I would handle them and he would never even know they were here. (I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for your little dog!!)

Mom briskly went to the room and pulled the towel off the cage, the sounds of a terrier losing his mind in the backyard. Sure enough, two more were trying to squeeze through, and she shoved them back in. She wrapped the cage in the towel and then wrapped the whole thing tightly in duct tape, fingers crossed it was tight enough to keep everyone in.

Next morning the dog was still rabid, but now searching the house for something. My Grandfather was still clueless to our current issue but I hoped he didn’t need to ever know – dogs bark, there’s probably a taunting squirrel outside or a rogue breeze pushing the house around. I only had a few days left of this crisis and then I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore so I buckled down in my resolve and said nothing.

Curious, I lifted an edge of the towel. There were only three mice left OH DEAR GOD. Squirmy little bastards!

I sat in my adrenalized panic for a moment, then began another sweep of the room. Nothing. No sign of them.

At this point I have to break the news to someone, and the safest choice is still my mother. 

She looked at me. Took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed in the same defeat I knew that I too would have to embrace.

We have to tell Grandpa. Oh lord.

Now I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of my grandfather – to this day I revere him as the best man of my life, the strongest, most hard-working, fierce protector of family there ever was. He stood over 6′ tall and could crack two walnuts from his tree out front with one hand, one for me and one for my sister. He took a special shining to me too, and did his best to always impart his wisdom and work ethic upon me; two traits I do like to think I picked up very well. 

He was a tough sob, though. When he heard the news that there were of-age-to-breed, essentially wild mice let loose in his house, a plan crossed his mind once and he dove all in on the idea. Immediately he went into the garage and pulled out his shop-vac, plugged it in with an extension cord, put Otis on a leash and systematically went through the house room by room, letting Otis sniff the way. As the Otis found the mice, if the dog couldn’t get ’em Grandpa sucked the mice up in the vacuum, and once each room was clear he’d go into the next like some kind of yard-sale Ghostbuster. My mom and I watching TV through the noise of the shop-vac, like this was the thing to do.

I don’t think Grandpa kept track of all the mice he sucked up or let his dog eat, but after awhile he seemed satisfied with the state of the house. Lastly, he pulled the cage’s top off and vacuumed up the mice left in the cage as a nail in the mouse-discussion coffin. I think I had enough weird emotions by this time about the month I was having I allowed it, like, ‘well, this might as well end like this.’ Without speaking another word, he set the cage in the trash outside, wagged his finger at me and bopped me on the nose in a gentle (but frustrated) ‘I told you so’ fashion and set to his recliner with his smug little dog. 

Mom poured him and herself a scotch and sat down with him. 

I never participated in another Science Fair again, and ‘Mousegate’ never quite got funny enough for Grandpa to joke about.