Wednesday, April 08, 2009

The Tale of the Late Timmy Willy



This is not a picture of my hand or Timmy Willy. I only have pictures of him on my phone, and the phone will not let me send picture messages to my email address right now for some reason. Timmy was a brown fancy mouse, so really the only thing this picture portrays that's relevant to my story is the fact that Timmy was tiny just like this white one. Actually, he may have been smaller.

A couple of days ago, I went to Petsmart to see if they had any bunnies or chicks for Easter (which, by the way, they did not.) While looking at the rodents there, I noticed an adorable tiny brown fancy mouse. He was smaller then the other mice in his cage, and had a perfect fluffy coat and tiny mouse features. While being endeared, a bigger mouse came over and attacked the tiny brown one. It was horrible! The brute chased him around and kept biting his little tail and hind legs. The brown cotton ball tried to fight back with bites and such, but it didn't appear to do him much good. Some sort of "save the helpless creature" instinct of mine kicked in as soon as I saw he was bleeding, and I knew that even though I can not keep pets in my apartment, I needed to take him home to save him from dying.

The mean black and white mice continued to pick on my mouse as I waited for an attendant to come and rescue him. While it wasn't my first pick, he received the name Timmy Willy during the wait. When the Petsmart employee finally arrived, she looked at Timmy and recommened I take another brown mouse home since he was pretty beat up. She said something about how she meant to separate him from the others for a few days so he could heal, which I recognized as being code to the customers that he was going to die. But I didn't care. I'd become too attached after naming him and all to let him die in Petsmart. Since he was so mangled, she adopted him out free of purchase. It was a fun feeling to walk out of the store holding a little box with holes in it in one hand and a little bag of mouse food in my backpack.

The whole bus ride home was spent pondering where I would house Timmy. I decided to keep him in a plastic drawer from my room that seemed deep enough to keep him from getting loose. However, after holding and watching him for a few minutes, it became apparent that the plastic drawer would not be needed, because Timmy was very still. He didn't move around much. Even though it had me worried, it was kind of nice to be able to hold him without him squirming all about. I spent the next several hours in the apartment of a friend who didn't have roommates so we could keep Timmy a secret. We watched over Timmy the whole time. We heated some soy milk for him, and tried to help him drink some water too. He drank a little bit, but not much. He also didn't eat anything. While it was nice not having him poop at all, him not eating was sad to see because it accentuated his poor health.

I ended up sleeping over because I didn't want to leave him. The Petsmart lady told us to rub some Neosporin on his wounds to help them heal. We did so, using a Q-tip to be gentle. I think that Timmy was infected, because he didn't smell very good even for a male mouse. It was wonderful to hold him. If I put him on my stomach while laying down, he would crawl up and tuck himself under my chin, or between my neck and shoulder. His whiskers and tiny paws tickled. We didn't want to sleep with him since we might squish him and...sleeping with a mouse would be kind of gross, so we put him in a small box padded with tissue paper and placed it on the night stand next to her bed. I got up to check on him a few times during the night, given a bit of hope everytime I saw his heart still beating.

Timmy died sometime between 3:30 and 7:30 in the morning. When we woke up, he was on his back, stiff, legs in the air, and tiny teeth poking out of his mouth. It was a sad day. I miss the little bugger. He was darling, and seemed so sweet and docile because he was sick. It was a lot of fun to just watch him crawl around or close his eyes upon being petted. I have a new respect for rodents. They're not the ideal pets, but definitely have some perks. I'm glad that Timmy was able to die away from the other mice that caused his death in the first place.

4 comments:

Melissa said...

I like a good mouse. However, I do think its odd that my mother let my brother keep one he found near our house growing up. Poor thing probably had all sorts of diseases and died very soon after being put into captivity.

I'm sorry about Timmy, but I'm glad you were able to help him leave this world in a more pleasant fashion.

Nedge said...

I agree with Melissa.

You make me want to go rescue some mouse from the horrors of a pet store.

Brittany said...

Do it! Go save the helpless mice! It's a fun time. I might do it again sometime.

Moonlight writer said...

Well, you get brownie points for the rescue attempt, and saving Timmy from a horrible store death, like broken merchandise. Take comfort that he had a nice life at the end, in your care. You helped ease his suffering.