M is for MOUSE

I don't really mind sharing my breakfast cereal with anyone, but I do think it is courteous to ask before taking. Also, it's pretty good manners when you are a visitor, to at least pour the cereal into a bowl, rather than stick one's head and whole body into the cereal box and tramp about through it, even before the landlord has appeared in the kitchen. I mean, you could at least wash your feet! But 'Michael', as we shall call him, to deflect any adverse publicity away from his immediate family, had no such manners and by the time I arrived in the kitchen, he was fully clothed with a Bran Flakes box and the only evidence of his presence was the gluttonous munching coming from within and a brief glimpse of his tail wagging, if that's what mice tails do when they're happy. He didn't even hear me advancing towards the worktop and by the time my large shadow had plunged him into temporary darkness, I reckon he knew his fate was sealed for he suddenly stopped eating, glanced upwards out of the corner of his beady eye and that was the last daylight he was to see. Execution was swift, though the method was unusual yet ingenious and it's probably sufficient to say that car tyres are bigger and stronger than cereal boxes!

Michael was the latest in a long line of family members who had arrived uninvited at our rented home and had left their calling cards all along the worktop, one even daring to descend into the depths of the toaster for nourishment, while we watched from the other side of the kitchen. Being alerted to our swift movement across the room, he had scampered out and climbed down the back outside of the fridge, sitting motionless inside two metal panels and camouflaged against their dark metallic colour. In my rage though, I could see him through the bars and knew his only method of escape was out one of the two open ends. However he wasn't to be budged and I wasn't giving up. Execution was swift, though the method was unusual yet ingenious and it's probably sufficient to say that sharp bread knives fit through the little slots on the back of a fridge!

Regularly we watched the little rodents stick their heads into traps, such was their arrogance and by the time we eventually left the house, some three years later, we had won many battles but never the war. All was well in our new home until the colder evenings and the falling apples began to attract the wrong kind of clientele once again and before too long they were having sports day above our bedroom ceiling every night. As they acquired more courage and evidently found more openings, they turned into explorers and before long had located the kitchen and living room at the other end of the house. The first we knew of their presence were the inevitable calling cards. Having gained an acceptable level of maturity with regard to dealing with such vermin, that didn't involve ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth like some crazed berserker from the bygone Viking age, I set about purchasing an array of wooden, plastic and metal devices that basically all did the same thing- execute them. It was at this stage of my mouse education, I was to discover that mice are, like myself, not terribly fond of cheese, but can't resist a nice rasher of cooked bacon or a Mars bar. I was also to discover that some mice have extremely long tongues and can lick Mars bar off a trap without ever setting foot on the device. But over a period of months, during which traps clearly outnumbered offenders, we caught whole families and it was at this time I was to discover that mice are extremely light creatures and can fly huge distances though the air with a little help from my right arm! We won many battles but never the war. Until Whitie, our cat, arrived a few years ago. Since that fateful day in the history of mice, not one little rodent has crossed the threshold. Whitie regularly plays with them outside the window though I guess it's not much fun for the mouse, who knows it's a sort of pre-dinner haka. a bit like pushing your steak around the plate before you eat it. A very knowledgeable cat lover informs me that mice can detect the scent from a cat in the house and will not enter so I guess while the cat's not away the mice can't play.

Isn't it amazing, sometimes, the efforts we make to keep ourselves right with God and to keep Satan out of our lives. But no matter how much we try and the number of battles we win, we always lose a few and that's all he needs to keep coming back and get a foothold in our lives. How often have you tried to resist temptation and just when you think you have succeeded, he comes form a different direction where your defences are weak and easily gains entry. Yet Jesus tells us in Matthew's Gospel to 'Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.' When Jesus died and rose again, He not only won the battle but He won the war against satan. No longer do we need to fight alone because when satan knows that his Creator is living inside us, he realises that his is a losing battle.

We never have mice in the house now, but last night I think I heard one in the attic again. That's a lesson to me that satan never gives up trying. Don't leave the door open.