You might have to get up and step back to read this.




“It was a snap, and with a promise to myself, it was on. After the catch and disposal of the first resident mouse, believing that there was only one, I halfheartedly promised that the next catch would be dedicated to the scanner. With the promise in place, soon came the unwelcome snap of metal to wood. My stomach sank in disgust. I pulled on rubber gloves, pried back the metal armature, and placed the Stuart Little-like figure onto the scanner bed. I positioned the body into a half ‘A’, removed the gloves, scanned, repositioned the other half and repeated. I continued the procedure with disgust, and it wasn’t until around ‘M’ that I began to feel comfortable with the mouse-handling. Things were going smoothly – but as time dragged on science rapidly took over and rigor mortis set in. The last few letters were a dirty task, as I had to flex Fivel into place. I managed to straighten out the last leg of the ‘Z’, and with the sixty-fourth scan complete, I had achieved almost exactly what I had dreamed of. As time went on a multitude of mice followed the initial two. I eventually moved out.”