The Great Mouse Hunt
November 13, 2023
by Dale Sines
I met Mike in the early 1990's and was close with him through the time of his death. There are many stories around Mike that could be shared. Anyone that knew Mike would not be surprised to learn that almost all of those stories would involve some gaming plot or insanity. I would like to share one that is not gaming related however.
Mike lived with me for several months before he moved into his long term apartment. While I had gamed with him for several years, this several month period and the two years after it was the time period where I really got to know Mike. Not just in stories that he would tell, but in seeing his daily life during the period. One thing about Mike that is dramatically different from my own personality is in Mike's ability to take whatever is going on in front of him, shrug his shoulders and just carry on.
At the time he lived with me I was in an old four plex building that was near a drainage channel and had a strip of plain grassland near it. One night I came home from work just before midnight. Mike was sitting there playing an odd Playstation 1 RPG game I had evilly gotten him started on and eating a late dinner. I saw a mouse run along the edge of the wall and into one of the bedrooms. I flipped my lid and went a bit nuts. Mike didn't even look up from the game and just said "dude, its a small mouse, calm down and let it be. We can deal with it later." Of course I could do no such thing, but thankfully this was the time of 24 hour Walmart. Thus the hunt began.
I returned an hour later and it was now passed 1am (I had 7:30am college classes in those days). I returned with an assortment of pretty much every rodent anything I found at Walmart. I got Mike's wide eye and eyebrow raised as I continued pulling the arsenal of items out laying them out everywhere in the tiny apartment. I did not find the mouse that day and finally went to bed somewhere around 4am feeling good about something getting the mouse the next day.
The next day did not go any better. I took everything out of one bedroom then closed and sealed it off, then moved everything into the last room to clear both bedrooms. Then put everything back while closing the door each time I went in or out with anything. All in way too much time and Mike just laughed at me while I carried on.
The third day Mike started taking a log of the situation.
Somewhere close to a week Mike told me the mouse probably got out and probably wasn't even in the apartment anymore.
After the first week I was vindicated.....sortof....not really.....I saw the mouse scurry along the same wall again. The mouse went into the closet with the hot water heater unit. I put down a towel and crammed it in so the mouse could not get out. I put in traps, poison, glue traps, other poison type (I did mention I went a bit overboard). I made sure that towel was shoved in under door tightly enough it wasn't going anywhere. I was strutting around about my victory to Mike when he got back from work. He just chuckled and got that dang log he was keeping out on it.
Every day when I'd get home I would check and got nowhere. Everytime I'd walk by I'd bang on the door to that hot water closet and yell at the mouse, insult him, or make references to his impending death. Mike would write down some of the more memorable items.
Finally, I came home late one night to the most awful smell. I had won! I was genuinely curious which of the tons of crap in there did him in. The answer was none of them. The dang bastard mouse starved to death. None of the crap I bought did anything. I thought Mike was going to choke or die of lack of air he laughed so hard. The final icing on the cake was the mouse had chewed on the towel enough that I had to get rid of it (and it was my one nice towel!).
I'd love to say that was the end of it. It really wouldn't be much of a Mike story if it did though. Remember that log he kept of my mouse shenanigans? That came back to haunt me for the next decade and change. Every game, no matter the genre or appropriateness, there was some damned mouse monster, mouse exterminator, or something plaguing me. My own phrases and crazy provided endless fodder. That of course is 100% Mike to his core.
Mike lived with me for several months before he moved into his long term apartment. While I had gamed with him for several years, this several month period and the two years after it was the time period where I really got to know Mike. Not just in stories that he would tell, but in seeing his daily life during the period. One thing about Mike that is dramatically different from my own personality is in Mike's ability to take whatever is going on in front of him, shrug his shoulders and just carry on.
At the time he lived with me I was in an old four plex building that was near a drainage channel and had a strip of plain grassland near it. One night I came home from work just before midnight. Mike was sitting there playing an odd Playstation 1 RPG game I had evilly gotten him started on and eating a late dinner. I saw a mouse run along the edge of the wall and into one of the bedrooms. I flipped my lid and went a bit nuts. Mike didn't even look up from the game and just said "dude, its a small mouse, calm down and let it be. We can deal with it later." Of course I could do no such thing, but thankfully this was the time of 24 hour Walmart. Thus the hunt began.
I returned an hour later and it was now passed 1am (I had 7:30am college classes in those days). I returned with an assortment of pretty much every rodent anything I found at Walmart. I got Mike's wide eye and eyebrow raised as I continued pulling the arsenal of items out laying them out everywhere in the tiny apartment. I did not find the mouse that day and finally went to bed somewhere around 4am feeling good about something getting the mouse the next day.
The next day did not go any better. I took everything out of one bedroom then closed and sealed it off, then moved everything into the last room to clear both bedrooms. Then put everything back while closing the door each time I went in or out with anything. All in way too much time and Mike just laughed at me while I carried on.
The third day Mike started taking a log of the situation.
Somewhere close to a week Mike told me the mouse probably got out and probably wasn't even in the apartment anymore.
After the first week I was vindicated.....sortof....not really.....I saw the mouse scurry along the same wall again. The mouse went into the closet with the hot water heater unit. I put down a towel and crammed it in so the mouse could not get out. I put in traps, poison, glue traps, other poison type (I did mention I went a bit overboard). I made sure that towel was shoved in under door tightly enough it wasn't going anywhere. I was strutting around about my victory to Mike when he got back from work. He just chuckled and got that dang log he was keeping out on it.
Every day when I'd get home I would check and got nowhere. Everytime I'd walk by I'd bang on the door to that hot water closet and yell at the mouse, insult him, or make references to his impending death. Mike would write down some of the more memorable items.
Finally, I came home late one night to the most awful smell. I had won! I was genuinely curious which of the tons of crap in there did him in. The answer was none of them. The dang bastard mouse starved to death. None of the crap I bought did anything. I thought Mike was going to choke or die of lack of air he laughed so hard. The final icing on the cake was the mouse had chewed on the towel enough that I had to get rid of it (and it was my one nice towel!).
I'd love to say that was the end of it. It really wouldn't be much of a Mike story if it did though. Remember that log he kept of my mouse shenanigans? That came back to haunt me for the next decade and change. Every game, no matter the genre or appropriateness, there was some damned mouse monster, mouse exterminator, or something plaguing me. My own phrases and crazy provided endless fodder. That of course is 100% Mike to his core.