My living room, yesterday morning. I’d just come downstairs after getting dressed, and I opened the door to find a very wet Dorrie, my cat, playing with a very wet, yet perfectly live, mouse. This is not too surprising an event, although admittedly, the mice are usually dead.

I sighed, and got down on my hands and knees to catch the mouse and chuck it back outside. Dorrie had other ideas, and before I could stop her she grabbed the mouse and took it under the kitchen table. As I shuffled after her, avoiding the wet paw prints on the vinyl flooring, she momentarily let the mouse go. It ran straight towards me, and I cupped my hands around it to stop it moving. Grabbing Dorrie’s collar with one hand and pressing her down to the floor, I attempted to pin the mouse’s tail with my other hand to pick it. The mouse jumped round and sunk its teeth into my thumb, hard, and WOULDN’T LET GO.

I had Dorrie restrained, because I knew if I let her go, she’d go for the mouse and take my thumb off too. The mouse was doing its best to take a hefty chunk out of my thumb, and was flicking my hand in an attempt to dislodge the mouse without hurting it. And it still WOULDN’T LET GO! In exasperation, I shook my hand, and the mouse was flung from my thumb and over my head into the living room behind me. Dorrie shook herself free too, jumped past me, and pounced on the mouse.

I finally managed to pin Dorrie down once again, and gingerly picked up the mouse by the very tip of its tail. I rushed to the front door with it, unlocked and opened the door, and dropped it outside, holding Dorrie back with one leg.

Then I went and nursed my bleeding thumb.

In work, I phoned the doctor to see if I needed any kind of antibiotics or tetanus shot. They said it wasn’t necessary unless the bite got infected, but as I was due for a tetanus jab anyway, I could come in that afternoon if I wanted. I explained what had happened to the head of the office, amidst much laughter (mine and hers), and went down to the doctor’s surgery that afternoon for a multishot (tetanus, polio, diphtheria).

This morning, I went into work as usual, and got a call from the head of the office around 10am. Apparently, yesterday afternoon she had told a friend in the department I used to work in that I’d been bitten by a rabid (jokingly) mouse, and had gone to get the tetanus shot.

“Oh my God,” said the friend. “Is she ok?”
“Oh yes, fine,” the head of the office said.

The head of the office had subsequently got into work this morning, to find a worried voice mail from the head of division.

“I heard you have an infestation down there, and that Elaine got bitten by a rabid mouse. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The gossip grapevine never ceases to amaze me. Talk about your Chinese whispers!