I love when the mouse takes the cheese.  I do.

I think it started a long time ago.  I was probably 6 years old.  We lived in a city, and weren’t allowed to have pets (much to my chagrin).

Anyway, one warm and sunny day, I found a little mouse in the grass.  Something was terribly wrong though.  It didn’t run or scurry.  It just laid.  It didn’t look hurt from the outside.  But I knew it was in trouble.

So, like a million other little kids in the world, I went inside, absconded an old shoe box for a make shift mousey hospital, and back outside I went.

I furnished it well.  Lots of torn up grass, a couple of twigs and a little plastic dish with water.  But the mouse just laid there…. wide eyed… and breathing hard.

Back inside.  Mom…. can I have some cheese?  So she cut a couple of slices from the brick of Velveeta which could ALWAYS be found in our fridge.  I ate most of it… because even at six… I knew that was WAY too much Velveeta for a mouse that size.

But the mouse would not take the cheese.

Back in.  This time to ask for some of Dad’s Cheddar Cheese.  Mom commented about me turning into a mouse if I kept eating so much cheese.  I’m sure I got as wide-eyed as my little friend outside in the box.

But, I must have kept it hidden…. because I went back to the mouse… this time with an offering of Sharp Cheddar.

Again.  The mouse would not take the cheese.

I sat cross legged there, in front of the box, not knowing how to help the mouse.  It wasn’t long until it died.  I was crushed.  I cried and cried and cried.  I went in and told my Mom about the mouse.  (She wasn’t mad about my ulterior motives with the aforementioned cheese.)

Instead, she suggested that I give the mouse a proper burial.  Which I did.  All the way behind the garage by the cement brick wall.

And I never forgot that afternoon, of caring for that little being.

To this day, I root for the mouse.  Whenever I see a mouse trap, I want the mouse to take the cheese.  I want him to beat the odds.  To clear the trap.

I don’t like it when people set traps for one another, either.  And by this… I mean people traps.    I don’t know many people who actually do this… but some folks are pretty good at being passive-aggressive, or using other measures … to get a desired and beneficial outcome for themselves.  They manipulate.  They deceive.

They put the cheese in the trap.

Now I think it better…. that we should share the cheese.  But even if someone wants to keep all the cheese for themselves… I don’t think it is a good idea to break someone else in half… just because sharing wasn’t an option for them.

That’s what we think.  Me, and the mouse in my pocket.

“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”  —  Pablo Casals