Game Over.

Among the things that go on behind the doors of our little duplex, there is The Mouse.

It starts like this: Jack, in one of his wildlife ecology labs, stuffed a little field mouse (which I discovered on the oven when I moved in on the first day-- oh, how I'd missed college). The Mouse, Harold (or something like that), has been traveling the house and hiding in the nooks and crannies of our Stuff. Whoever finds the mouse re-hides it.

The game began in the now-famous household story of the day that Jack and Yael hid Harold ON TOP OF THE SILVERWARE in the silverware drawer and NOBODY NOTICED. On the third day, while Jack and Yael were in the kitchen, Marly came in opened the drawer, reached right underneath the mouse, and got a fork. Unable to contain himself, Jack told Marly to look at the drawer again and, so, nudged it open with his foot ... to which her response was, "EWWWW you opened the drawer with your FOOT!"

Anyhow, after that day, the mouse began appearing in random places. Like behind soup cans and in glass jars and Bisquick boxes. One day, after finding the mouse on my kitchen shelf, I took him and craftily hid him underneath the record on our record player. It was a perfect hiding spot, I was so proud of myself. Whoever went to change the record next would lift it up and ha! there would be Harlod.

A few days passed.

Finally, one evening, Jack, Yael, and I were in the living room listening to music and generally bumming around. Jack lifted the record up and, lo!, the mouse was missing! Huzzah! Game on! I asked Jack and Yael who had moved it. They had no idea. Well, then, Marly must have found a good spot, we figured.

A day later we cornered Marly and commented, slyly, that the game must be going. She looked at us blankly and said that she hadn't touched the mouse. We all looked at each other. Where was Harold? Finally, we remembered that there had been some strange fuzz in the hallway a few days ago ... and went looking for it. It was museum stuffing fuzz.

Then, we looked at the dogs.

Onyx wouldn't eat a stuffed mouse, Yael said slowly. After all, even a black lab that eats cat shit and bottles of corn oil has her limits. I guess.

When we looked at Lad, he gave us his standard look of clueless hope. Were we going to pet him yet? How about now? And now?

You know, there were multiple sharp wires in the mouse so that it would keep its shape. We haven't found them yet.