Dollar Store Mouse

On a weekend shopping trip in early October my husband and I had stopped in at the Dollar Tree to pick up a few items.  The store had many Halloween themed displays and as we perused the aisles we often heard the mice.  Not real mice – these were small, motion activated decorations.  The store staff had placed several of them on shelves throughout the store.  As customers walked past they would trigger the mouse squeaks.

I am easily amused by things like this so of course I wanted one.  Hubby and I thought our cats at home might be tormented like these mice.  We picked up one of the packaged ones from the bin by the checkout.

 

Back at home I unwrapped the mouse and pulled the little tab from the battery compartment.  No squeaking.  My son and I took turns trying to get the mouse to make noise.  We could see the motion sensor but no matter what we tried we couldn’t get it to work.

We decided to take it apart – maybe the battery wasn’t connecting properly.  Once the mechanism was removed from the mouse body it worked fine.  We put it back in the mouse and again could not trigger the sensor.  Defective dollar store mouse.

Having already wasted enough time trying to get the thing to work I gave up and left it sitting on the counter.  Later that evening, when we were sitting in the living room, the mouse on the kitchen counter began to squeak.  No one was in the kitchen – there had been no movement.  Possessed dollar store mouse.

Over the next few weeks the mouse sat on the kitchen counter and continued to squeak randomly.  Sometimes it would go for several days without making any noise. Then one day it would squeak on and off throughout the morning or afternoon and then go silent again.  I’ll admit that it was a little eerie to hear the mouse at night when we were all in bed and the house was dark.

During the day it made me smile when I heard it initiate a conversation – yes, I do often talk to the mouse.  I know, it may not be ‘normal’ but our conversations are often more sensible than some of the conversations I’ve had with toddlers.

Last week the mouse was very vocal.  Sometimes it was very irritating, squeaking almost constantly for several minutes at a time with only brief periods of silence in between outbursts.  I tried moving it to other locations in the kitchen – behind the toaster, in the dark corner beside the fridge, under a towel or even in the bread bin. Still it continued to squeak and ignore my requests that to be quiet.  Annoying dollar store mouse.

It now sits on the plant shelf above the toddler table.  It seems happy there, not complaining as much, back to the occasional squeaking. The toddlers never seemed to notice when it squeaked in the kitchen.  They notice it now – especially at meal times when it interrupts their conversation.  After the mouse squeaks there is always a brief period of silence as the toddlers sit still and stare at each other.

I smile. Mischievous little dollar store mouse. :-)