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Mice are generally easy to take care of, yet, 

I can’t seem to get the gist of it. My best 

buddy, Taylor and I had always wanted to 

own a pet together. We spent practically 

every day together anyways, so why not?  

One day, out of impulse, we decided to go to 

the pet store and buy some mice. Something 

small, but still interactive. Two of them. One 

for her and one for me. 

We even had custody plans so the mice 

would get to spend equal time with us.   We 

thought that owning something as small as a 

mouse would be an effortless task. Boy did 

we underestimate that. Ever since the day 

we bought those darn mice, things went 

downhill. 

For those of you who don’t know, mice fight. 

A lot. Her mouse, Pinky, was always picking 

on my little runt-of-the-litter, Remmy. He 

could never hold his own in a fight, so I 

always had to break them up or he would’ve 

been a goner real quick. 

You may not think a small rodent the size of 

a plum could make a lot of noise, but just 

wait ‘til you pair it with another mouse or an 

exercise wheel. I guarantee you it’ll drive 

you mad within a week. 

For a while, it was kind of cute to see the 

little guys run on their wheel and play 

together. It started to get real 

bothersome when Taylor and I were trying 

to watch a film and all we heard were little 

mice creatures having a full-on brawl at the 

other side of the room. 

    “It’s your turn to take the gosh dang 

wheel out.” I said to Taylor. 

    “I’ve done it the last three times, you 

fool.” Taylor barked back.

    I couldn’t take it anymore. “Fine, I’ll just 

take the stupid thing out.” We were both 

getting frustrated that our little babies 

were actually just a nuisance. 

“You know, I was right when I said we 

shouldn’t’ve have gotten dumb old mice in 

the first place.”

“Oh come off it, Rachel. You wanted the 

mice just as badly as I did!” exclaimed 

Taylor. 

The cuteness really started to wear off when 

you forgot to clean their cage after a week or 

so. Those things could really stink up a place, 

let me tell ya. The second you walk in to the 

room where the dirty cage was, the foul smell 

of mouse feces and urine immediately burned 

your nostrils. It made you want to clean their 

cage twice a week just so the smell wouldn’t 

come back. Of course, we never did. 

When the cage was at Taylor’s, it would take 

weeks for her to even feed them, let alone 

freshen up the bedding. I was always 

reminding her to do the bare minimum to keep 

them alive.

    I remember we got in quite the tiff over 

one time when she lied to me about cleaning 

the cage. I guess, I really don’t know why I 

got so mad when the cage wasn’t cleaned 

regularly. Mice aren’t very clean animals 

normally so it really shouldn’t’ve mattered 

that much. They just really stunk up a 

place, that’s all. 

It wasn’t that much different of a story 

when the mice stayed at my house. I kept 

the cage generally clean and the water was 

always fresh, but they probably lived a sad 

and lonely life. I kept them in a separate 

room, in the spare bedroom, so they never 

really got much stimulation. 

I just couldn’t take the noise, if you really 

want to know. It drove me crazy, especially 

when I was trying to sleep for goodness 

sake. After a couple weeks, we kind of just 

silently accepted that our two mice children 

would just live at my house. 

I didn’t mind too much, I mean, I wouldn’t 

have to badger Taylor to clean their cage all 

the time.   So I now had two dogs, two cats, 

and two mice, all living peacefully under one 

roof. 

Things were peachy until one day I went in 

to the mouse room to feed them and I 

heard a soft, wheezing noise. I went over 

and looked in and saw Pinky (that’s Taylor’s 

mouse) lying on his side, pretty much 

paralyzed. I knew things didn’t look good, so 

right away I called her.

“Taylor” I said. “I have some bad news: 

there’s something wrong with Pinky.”

  “What? What do you mean?” you could 

tell she was already worried. She and I 

were both avid animal lovers, so this 

kind of thing was always hard for us. 

      “Well, Pinky is just sort of 

lying about in an odd way. He’s not 

eating or drinking either and he keeps 

gasping for air.” I explained. 

   “Try making him drink or move or 

do something.” She was always trying to 

force me to do things that just didn’t 

make sense. 

   “Taylor, I can’t just force a dying 

mouse to drink water. What’d ’ya want 

me to do, open his tiny mouth and pour 

water down his throat?” I wasn’t trying 

to sound mean, but there really wasn’t 

much I could do at this point. I did it 

anyways, just to please her. He wasn’t 

my mouse, after all.

I sat there for an hour at least, trying 

to get some sort of movement from 

Pinky, but he really just wasn’t budging. 

The part that really got me was when I 

was holding him and I could see his 

little mouse hands twitch one last 

time, then fall limp. He took his 

last breath and I could see his whole 

body stiffen up, even his little tail 

was pin straight. He looked just like 

one of those plastic, toy mice, he 

really did.

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