Today at one of my classes, there was a pandemonium. It wasn’t so much like a rapture. It was a set of recurring events in which many people in the room yelled, screamed, and ran for their dear lives.
What was the issue? A mouse.
That’s right. A cute little mousey that happened to find its way through labyrinth of windows and doors to crawl into a classroom one lazy afternoon to get away from all the clouds and depressing coldness that is Santa Cruz during these recent days. First a murmur, and then few fingers pointed. At last, professor notices that there is a cute furry creature roaming around in the classroom and completely freaks out and swept up by this chaos that ensued. Few people tried to scare it out of the room, but in horror, the mouse decided to hide behind black box that contains all the media equipment in the classroom. Perhaps after three to four incidents of shrieks, the mouse found its way past my nose outside the door. As a functioning sociopath, I always sit by the door, because it’s next to a window (=nice view), I can also open the window (=ability to control the temperature of the room), and finally if there is ever a disaster like earthquake perhaps, I can easily escape the falling blocks to save myself at the expense of others.
Anyway, so I was sitting by the door and a guy yells out all of a sudden, “it’s outside, close the door!” So reluctantly, I wake myself up and go to close the door. That instant was the first time I got to see this little mouse. It was tiny, furry, grey thing that was just adorable. However, by the popular demand, I sealed the door and let it return to its freedom. All the while, only thing I could think of was:
Also I feel like I should explain myself. I’m not a mouse-enthusiast. I think it’s a good thing that it found itself out of the classroom, because I, myself, was beginning to be concerned about my own safety. I just have seen a lot more gross looking mice and rats in my time. This one time when I was perhaps five or six, I saw a corpse of a rat filled with maggots. Now that was really gross. Maybe it has scarred me forever. Maybe that’s the reason why I’m so awkward around mousey ladies and the reason why I love cats.
