Is uninvited 6-ounce guest a threat to Mt. Airy visitor?

Posted 12/28/12

by Maggie Wollman

For the Thanksgiving holiday, I was blessed to be visited by family members, specifically my four teenage grandchildren who spent the night on my third floor. The two girls …

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Is uninvited 6-ounce guest a threat to Mt. Airy visitor?

Posted

by Maggie Wollman

For the Thanksgiving holiday, I was blessed to be visited by family members, specifically my four teenage grandchildren who spent the night on my third floor. The two girls took the front room, the two young men the rear-facing bedroom. All trekked upstairs carrying large duffel bags, computers, other electronic gear and the men, a football.

The girls quickly established themselves on their iPhones while the two college men went to the playground to toss the football. When the playground lights went out, they returned to their room to, I presume, enter into their electronic world.

At 11 o'clock the young men came down to report that they were moving down to the vacant bedrooms on the second floor. Their room was “uninhabitable.” Why? They saw a mouse! They carried Fred, the cat, to their bedroom to do the right thing. However, Fred couldn't figure out why the boys had disturbed him from resting on his favorite radiator, so he turned and returned downstairs.

The young men's revulsion was sincere. I assured them the mouse would not have joined them in bed and that they should have ignored it. With a pained look and a shudder, Sam rejected my notion that a six-ounce mouse was no threat to a 6'4” young man.

As a matter of fact, I'm rather charmed by the event. This teeny rodent managed to get up to the third floor of a large stone house in Mt. Airy. How did he enter the house? From the basement? Main floor? Could he have climbed a tree and leaped onto a roof and entered on the third floor? But the windows are sealed.

Did he climb the 32 stairs? Did he enter a radiator opening and cling to the hot pipes? And why the third floor? There's no food up there.

With the help of Disneyland DreamWorks, I could interview the mouse and get answers to my questions. This mouse could become immortalized on tape. What shall we call this Oscar-winning film:

• The Adventures of TR (tiny rodent)

• The Mouse Who Can Soar (not score)

• The Intimidator

• The Infiltrator

There's no end to the titles I can imagine for this animated movie; however, when this mouse realizes there is no food or celebrity to be had on the third floor of our house, he'll go some place else. Mt. Airy is a hospitable community, even if the Wollmans are not.

Maggie Wollman is a long-time resident of Mt. Airy and a member of the Lovett Library Writers group.

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