Mouse, God, dog & cluck

Well, it's really that kinda post.. A couple of weird beings have crossed my path recently and it's only fair that they get an entry in Godyears.

Mouse makes an ass of men :
Well, I don't wanna complain an' all that, but a doc's life is tough enough without having to deal with non-occupational hazards. So imagine our plight when our presently congested 'room of 3' turned into a room of 4, courtesy Jerry the mouse. He's a real character; hiding out of sight initially when he still thought we were a threat. Gradually he realised he was the boss in the room and would openly run around in broad daylight.
I and C laid an elaborate trap with food, plates and spoons positioned to fall at the slightest touch and laid wait for him once during the early hours of the morning ( 1 am ).. it was a good hour later that C realised that while we were concentrating our eyes on the pillar-like trap we'd set on the ground, Jerry had been sitting on the same table that C's hand was leaning on and chewing through his sugar container !!! Needless to say, he got away that time. He would keep doing that to us, being in the exact opposite place from where we'd expect him to be.

To add insult to injury, once while we were chasing him ( basically, hitting the cupboards in the hope he'd come out into the open floor ), he disappeared for awhile. We couldn't figure out where he was since we knew he hadn't jumped out the window sil. A passing senior doc mentioned that mice hide in the really dusty areas so try there. Sure enough he scampered out when we hit the 'dustiest area' and escaped out the window. What's the insult in this ? Well, it was my bookstand with all my medical books that I'm supposed to be reading that earns pride of place as the most dustiest, unused spot in the room. ( Kids, don't try this at home. Keep opening those books... you don't wanna make mommy angry. ) Anyway, what was Jerry's fate ? I'll tell ya at the end of this post.

The day God cried :
This is actually a part of my recent tourist diary; the continuation of which just got indefinitely postponed. This took place when I was in Kerala last month. I met God at home. She was pretty pleasant, in hindsight, though I was expecting more, what with her being God and all.
You see, I attended a seance.. though a possession seems more apt a word. "Gifted", "a divine power" etc are other words thrown around to describe her. It's,you know, the same as when someone enters another person's body ( Yawn.. such a common everyday occurrence, after all, right ? ) Only in this case, the lady in question 'gets possessed by one of the billion Gods we have.' I don't know how I end up at these kinda thingys, but I invariably do.
Anyway, it's been a couple of years since anyone's told me he / she's God so I was looking forward to this. But I wasn't expecting God's reaction to me. Once she 'turned to God', she looked at me... and started crying !! Can you imagine how it feels when God looks at you and cries ?!? She later told me , after being 'depossessed' ( is that a word ? ) that God was crying seeing my past and assured me my bad days were over. It made me feel better at the moment, but thinking about it later, I wondered why God would cry for me ? I mean, didn't he know what he'd written in my life story ? And come on, I don't have that bad a past that God needs to cry.. it's not like I'm Britney Spears or something. Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she wasn't crying for my future.. that would be scary for me. I guess the real question is, do you believe in possession?
Well, I'm not gonna ridicule the lady ( too much ) since if she really is getting visitations from God, then this post really would piss off God and you guys know me... I would never do anything to piss off God. But overall, ya, I do believe that some people can get possessed.. personally, I know that given the chance, I'd like to possess Kim Kardashian's boyfriend. Growr !! Down boy ! Down Boy ! Doooowwn Boy !!
But come on. We're a perfect match. We're both free flying spirits who don't care for tradition, we both have our own sex tapes ( unfortunately, mine is peddled in video shops as "Nightmare in Elm Street 7 : Freddy Kruger scared shitless", we both have twin assets down unda ( my godown butt, her shopping mall butt ), we're both in love with her, I have her pics ; her bodyguards have mine .. I swear, the similarity is uncanny. It's destiny in the end. It's meant to be.. a fairytale ending.. one that would make God cry, hopefully.

An old dog's new tricks :
Ruby's 9 years old. That's a lot of dogyears.. She's definitely slowed down now, though she still retains the old habits.

• She won't drink her morning milk even after 9 years till we place our milk laden finger into her lips.
  
• She still checks the kitchen sink in the mornings to see the day's menu. She still sits besides the old neighbour's cat ( the one she used to chase as a child.. now they've grown to have a mutual respect for each other ) and watches my mom feed the crows, sparrows and mynahs breakfast, lunch and teatime snacks daily.
  
• She still genuflects when she sees us first thing in the morning.. a quiet acknowledgement that we're the boss.
  
• She still chases cows, forgetting she's one tenth their weight and a hit away from a plaster cast.

In addition however, she's picked up new tricks too.

She now knows to open my parents bedroom at night and get an hour's sleep in advance on their bed under the air conditioner before they go to sleep( surprisingly, she never does it during the daytime when there ain't no A/C in the room.)

She already knew how to take out her anger on someone by choosing only that particluar person's clothes from the neatly folded and ironed set and ravaging it. But now, as a sign of respect, she takes the cloth from my damn briefcase ( lying partly open ) and then comes to me with it in her mouth. If I don't shout / make a loud noise, she takes that as a yes and begins her mauling of the cloth with a big wagging tail. After that, she looks at me expectantly. You see, after my Louis Philippe shirt is turned into a furry set of handkerchiefs, I'm supposed to escort her to the bathroom and fill up a mug of water for her to drink : after all, all that attacking is tiring work, isn't it ?
Sigh, I miss her. This time when I go home, I'm gonna get her a soft Park Avenue silk shirt to chew on. Her teeth ain't what it used to be, you know.


The chickens :
Which brings us back to Jerry, the mouse. What did happen to him ? Well, he had a good run. We even installed one of those mouse traps with the trapdoor and a piece of onion pakoda inside to tempt him. Well, 2 days later, we woke up and the pakoda was gone. No mouse. The next pakoda was slightly luckier. We woke up in the morning to the sight of Jerry sitting happily on the trapdoor and chewing the pakoda.. and leaving as calmly as he came. Dumbass trap, we cursed it. Still, with nothing else at our disposal, we decided to keep a piece of crunchy toast that night. Honestly, I expected a note today morning saying "No like toast plain. Please add butter or stick to pakodas for breakfast. - mouse."

Well, anyway, I was woken up by my 3rd roommate at 6 am. He was pissed. Why, I asked groggily. He handed me his toothpaste."I'll brush my teeth when I get up, ok." "Look at it. " he screamed annoyed. Well, he had a right to be pissed. Jerry had gnawed right through the toothpaste tube. If you pressed, paste came out from 4 different spots.
"Not bad. Jerry's learning to brush his teeth too before he eats." I laughed. " Before you know it, he'll be joining a convent school and carrying his own PowerRangers tiffin box."
Of course, roommate 3 wasn't too happy about sharing his paste with a mouse ( some people are so selfish, ya know ). Anyway, the bread was still there and the trap was empty again. I went to bath, seeing as I was wide awake. I came back and walla !! Jerry had finally fallen.. having brushed his teeth, he's finally got fooled while going for his daily breakfast.
After a lot of hi-fives and hoorahs and screamin at the cage ( "Who da man ? who da mouse ? Whata ? You think you're too smart for us ? Huh ? I got a distinction in Ophthalmology, what are your graduate marks, beeyaach ?" )

All through this, Jerry stared at us silently. He just stared. Sheesh. I don't know, but if a girl stared that long at me, I'd be down on my knees with a wedding ring in a jiffy. I don't know what was going through his mind - byhearting our faces for revenge, a silent plea... pretending to be a statue so we'd open the cage . Anyway, you see, the reason this part of the post is titled "Chicken" is quite simple.. you see, that's what Jerry made of us grown men.

We're so used to blood in the operation theatres, brains and bowels et al.. but when the time came, we realised we didn't have the nerve to kill a mouse. Not even a mouse who'd chewed away the tops of all my 'previously air tight' plastic containers or kept us up all night waiting for him. Even if I and C didn't say it, I think we both knew we couldn't kill this guy. After all, why do you think we never put poison in the bait ? The closest we came was to placing the bug spray can above the box. Neither of us could press the button.

Jerry's not a part of our room anymore. The cleaning lady let him loose a mile from the hospital. Of course, we still keep the box and the same crunchy toast bait on the floor. No, we don't expect Jerry back. But you see, we came across a carbon copy paper with a suspiciously small handwriting.
It said : " Hi Mary. Found good place to stay. Bring the kids and Aunt Bertha. There's plenty of room here. And the staff serves breakfast here too. - love, mouse. "