Two: Farewell, Mr. Jingles
Perhaps you follow me on Facebook and saw a post back in the winter about Mr. Jingles.
One cool night - cause South Carolina nights never get cold - Vicki and I were enjoying dinner with Alex Trebek, hoping we could get smarter by watching Jeopardy.
Vicki gasped out loud, and I immediately looked at the television, thinking perhaps someone had answered a bizarre statement like, "Burt Reynolds was considered for this major movie role until the headliner refused to let him have it." Who is Michael Corleone in The Godfather?
But Vicki was not gasping at the television.
She was gasping at a brave little house mouse that ran back and forth across our family room floor before stopping in the middle of it.
"It's Mr. Jingles!" I said out loud, remembering the name of the indestructible mouse from the movie, The Green Mile.
"It's a mouse!" Vicki said, having never seen The Green Mile.
Just like that, Mr. Jingles did a little jump and fled to the laundry room. Well, maybe he didn't do a little jump, but I wanted him to do a little jump. I also wanted him to wear a vest and have a top hat and cane, but he had none of that either.
Vicki ordered me to put out poison, which I did. She also ordered me to put out sticky traps, which I did. I think the sticky traps are inhumane, so I put out some small Combat 'Mouse Killer' traps. I think a quick death is better than a long, sticky one. The trigger of the Combat traps had a small dab of peanut butter on them - kind of a last meal for the doomed if you will.
Mr. Jingles had none of this, making me wonder if he was from the circus.
Weeks passed - and I mean weeks - and Mr. Jingles seemed to avoid the poison. He also avoided the sticky traps, and he even managed to eat the peanut butter but avoid the bite of the trap. I was starting to root for him and root against his greatest enemy - my Vicki. Those wedding vows did not cover my support of Mr. Jingles.
Fast Forward to Easter Weekend. Yes, you heard that right.
Mr. Jingles is still making an evening run through the family room, stopping to wink at me and tip his hat. And, I smiled back and pointed at him, communicating my pride for his Artful Dodgerness. I swear I thought he asked me to throw some jelly in that trap with the peanut butter. So, that night, I did.
Vicki had enough.
"I'm getting a cat," she said. Nothing says mercy and grace like fetching a cat on Easter Weekend to take care of a mouse problem.
Vicki and I have never - in 34 years - owned a cat. Heck, neither of us even had a cat growing up. I don't think in 60 years I had ever even petted a cat. On Good Friday - yes, you heard that right - my beautiful, sweet Vicki went to Animal Control had put down $40 on a three-year-old cat named Vivian. Well, its name was Margeaux, which I thought was stupid and so I changed her name to Vivian.
More on Vivian in later posts.
I kind of hoped for a Tom and Jerry relationship between Vivan and Mr. Jingles, where both survived and a cartoon series was written about them, making me millions of dollars in royalties. That relationship never happened.
Within a day of Vivian's arrival, Mr. Jingles confronted his options: Death by Vivian or Death by Mouse Trap. He chose the option featuring the last meal rather than becoming a meal. I don't blame him. That's all I'll say about that.
Because he had survived for so long and because, well, he died on Easter weekend, I gave him a proper burial out in the yard near where the Cardinals gather and where my Cottontail Bunny shows up from time to time.
Farewell, Mr. Jingles.
RIP Mr. Jingles.
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