And Thereby Hangs A Tail

I'll bet you think I misspelled that last word in the title, but let me tell you! - I may be a goat, but I know what is what! This story is most assuredly true. The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

We have mice in the barn. I know. It is deplorable. Still, these things happen. The goatmother says we can't have a cat because the coyotes that sometimes sit and watch us, or the cougars, or maybe even the lynx would eat the cat. And so, we have mice in the barn.

However our mice are not just any mice. Really I believe our mice may be from a research lab working to breed mice of superior intelligence. Yes, from there, but perhaps not successful graduates. In fact, sadly, I believe they may be dropouts.

Allow me to explain. The inner-sanctum of our barn has two parts. In the large part, the hay is kept. You must walk through the large part in order to reach the little room where the Holy Grail grain is kept. Now the person or persons that built our barn were not thinking very straight when they made the grain room because it used to be open on almost all sides. So, the first thing the goatmother did was to painstakingly go around tacking up hardware cloth mice can't fit through, spraying polyurethane foam mice won't chew through, and stuffing in steel wool mice can't get through and won't touch. She carefully sealed off EVERY POSSIBLE mouse-sized hole. After all, the goatmother didn't want to put down traps for the mice. But the mice didn't care. The mice came in anyway.

The straw-that-broke-the-goat's-back occurred one night when the goatmother walked across the barn to the grain room, opened the door, took the lid off the grain barrel and not one, but two mice came running as though the dinner bell had just rung. The goatmother turned, saw the two mice and yelled, 'What are you doing?!'...at which point both mice jumped into the air with 'Oh, Duh!' looks on their whiskery faces and proceeded to run in opposite directions. The goatmother said, 'That's it! When they start running out to meet me, that's when I draw the line!' Down went the traps!

So the mice we have now chew the 'no-chew' foam into tiny bits and deposit them in the corner with wads of the 'can't-get-through-won't-touch' steel wool, making lovely little nests. And the trap? Well, the trap sits on the floor baited with delicious peanut butter - untouched. And the mice come out into our part of the barn, walk around, sit up and watch the goatmother when she comes out to take care of us. She rolls her eyes, sighs and leaves peanuts down for them when it snows.