The Ballad of Bob the Mouse

"Bob the Mouse woulda been snake bait
'til a little young lady helped him escape
She put him in a box that she left on her bed
and woke the next morning with freaking asthma attack."

Doo doo doo, daa daa daa, and whatever the hell else you wanna put in there.

Not my best lyrics, I'll admit. But I'm in a rush and, per The Hubbins, I'm not supposed to find the story of Bob the Mouse amusing, especially because our Dear Sweet Thing 1 was having breathing difficulty. But it is just sooo darn funny.

The Hubbins bought a little tiny baby mouse to feed Checkers the Snake. Thing 1 discovered the little mouse in the snake cage yesterday and took umbrage at this -- we had been feeding Checkers Mice on Ice ("The other, other white meat"), which is somehow more acceptable to her. She asked me why. I told her I had no idea and bucked her question back to The Hubbins, who is Chief Gamekeeper in our household.

This morning, I walked in on a discussion between Thing 1 and The Hubbins, wherein Thing 1 claimed that the mouse was outside, having escaped. For those of you unfamiliar with our house -- for Thing 1's story to be true, the baby mouse would have had to scale a 18" glass wall in the snake cage, remove the lid (which is hooked in place), jump down 4 feet to the floor, run out of Thing 2's room to the staircase, run downstairs, unlock the bolt lock on the front door, twist the door handle, and then close the door behind him so that the dog wouldn't run out....The girl has GOT to work on the plausibility factor. I joked about the sad loss to the scientific community, now that Wonder Mouse was repatriated he could not be studied.

The Hubbins called me about an hour ago to find out what I knew about the mouse incident and inquire as to why I didn't nip it in the bud last night when he was at work. (It seems that Thing 1 was wheezing up a storm, and it was probably my fault, what with my being at work and all.) Here's what really happened:

Some time yesterday, Thing 1 saw the little mousey and liberated him. She put him in a box in her room and named him Bob. At bedtime, she put Bob on her bed to "cuddle" with him. (The story gets a little fuzzy as to whether Bob remained in the box or scurried around her bed all night.) I didn't tuck her in last night, so I didn't notice Bob. Today, some time after I left for work, she owns up to all this but only after breaking out in hives and wheezing a whole lot. Bob has since been repatriated back to the wild, where one can only hope that he happens upon a peckish hawk.

My challenge: without laughing, tell Thing 1 that she is not to do this again, and, without sounding cruel, explain that we are not getting any rodents as pets. Our homeowners association bans pet varmints, so I can blame them.