Edinburgh: Of Mice and Scared Little Boys
Friday, September 22nd, 2006The two most likely ways you will jump a foot into the air whilst standing naked and half-asleep in front of your toilet at 4.16am taking a pee-pee:
1 – You wake up enough to realise that, in fact, that is not the toilet you’re standing in front of, leaving you thrashing about in semi-darkness like a first-day-on-the-job fire-fighter who has yet to master the art of keeping the hose steady, searching for the correct drain.
2 – A mouse practically tap dances over your toes, whistling a famous tune from some Broadway show you can’t remember the name of.
The second of those happened to me this morning. Although by saying practically tap danced, I mean sort of tap danced, by which I mean I saw a flash of something small and brown out of the corner of my eye darting along the bottom of the door frame about six inches from my foot. Of course, in my barely-conscious state, I couldn’t be sure it was a mouse, just that it was small and brown, which means it could’ve just as easily been a number seven billiard ball, or, say, Gary Coleman (yes, these are the things that go through your head at 4.16am).
Dave