Drinking (A Mouse) May Be Bad For You

A short essay on the potential dangers of traveling and everything else

Can I ask you a question?

Do you think that I’m crazy for spending the last three years traveling full-time in my campervan, given that, on average, I have a near-death experience every six months?

Most of my family and friends think I am nuts for traveling full-time since retiring. They know me better than anyone. Maybe I am nuts—squirrels keep trying to bury me.

(Sorry. I couldn’t resist a squirrel joke.)

On the other hand, how dangerous is it to stay home, or drive to the grocery store, or go to work? It’s like the joke about the man who heard on the news that most people die within 10 miles of home, so he moved 20 miles away.

My point is that everything is dangerous; most people just choose not to think about it.

For example, the mere fact of being born has a 100% fatality rate at some point. There is no one alive who will escape death; there never has been, except in the Bible.

***

Are you still with me?

You probably want to know a bit more about my near-death experiences, such as:

· A month after starting out, meth-heads attacked me after midnight in Montana

· A man with a gun robbed me in New Orleans, but left me enough for breakfast

· My brakes failed while I was driving down down down into the Copper Canyon

· A tornado chased me from Little Rock, Arkansas, to St. Louis, Missouri

· Last August, I developed appendicitis while at a remote national park in California

That’s just in the last three years. Why am I still alive? Because of my Mom, I guess. Before I left, she gave me a rosary and said I would be safe as long as I had it. Not that I believe such things, but it’s the best and only explanation I have found so far.

None of those was as disturbing as drinking a dead mouse in Maine. Did the mouse misunderstand my interest in meeting a moose? It’s easy to mix up the two words.

But I digress.

***

I assume you are interested in how I came to drink a mouse. I spent October in Canada. I would still be up there, but Canada closed for the season.

I started in Quebec Province and proceeded to the Maritimes (New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) trying to see as much as possible before it got bitterly cold and windy.

Along the way, we saw Moose! warning signs everywhere, but we never saw any moose.

Picture of a moose, not a mouse

Moose are enormous creatures, standing 6-7 feet at the shoulder, but they don’t stop there, because, as the silly saying goes, they have a head on their shoulders.

(What mammal doesn’t have a head on its shoulders? Where else would its head be?)

On top of their head, moose have antlers, making their full height closer to 10-11 feet, much higher than the top of my campervan. I would not miss one if it meandered out of the woods onto the highway.

***

The Moose! Warning signs announce a number to call if you spot a moose on the road.

The current Moose! Warning sign has a number to call

Since I never saw a moose, I started calling them to report I had NOT seen a moose. “Hello, I want to report a missing moose!”

For some reason, my calls irritated the Canadian Moose Alert Task Force. “Sir, please stop calling to report missing moose. They are not missing. They are hiding.”

***

On the other hand, I saw a lot of northern porcupines, the second-largest rodent in North America, after the beaver, but do you think they have a Porcupine! Warning sign?

No, they do not, which may be why there are so many dead porcupines on the roads.

People are looking up for the gigantic moose and fail to see the poor, slow little porcupines, crawling clumsily across the road. They are largely nocturnal, have poor vision, and often try to cross the road around twilight, with disastrous results.

You would not believe the scientific name for a porcupine if I told you. Shall I tell you?

It’s Erethizon dorsatum. The first name means ‘irritating hair,” the second means “on its back.” A mullet haircut is irritating, and it’s in the back.

People with mullets might be porcupines, so they should probably stay off the Canadian highways at night. They should post a porcupine emergency number.

‘Police? I ran over a porcupine on the highway. Or a person with a mullet. Not sure.”

I digress again.

***

Once I realized that the tourist attractions were closing, we decided to head home.

We crossed from New Brunswick back into the US at a remote little town, Houlton, on a miserable, grey, rainy, windy morning. The weather mirrored how I felt about returning to the US.

Houlton is in a remote part of Maine, which is a remote state, and a rural one with low population density, although I met some people who appeared quite dense.

We drove south on I-95 to the small town of Millinocket, an Algonquin word for “I bet they’ll never figure out how to spell this!” After crossing the border, where we met a rather irritable US border guard, we continued south on I-95 to lovely Camden, Maine.

***

You may be wondering if we will ever find that mouse. Hang in there. We’re close.

The US border guard asked me if I was bringing any live animals into the US. I said, No, other than my dog. He looked skeptical. Perhaps he knew about Canadian mice, which get damn cold, and try to hitch a ride south into the US.

However, they do not hitchhike on the side of the road with their mouse thumbs out.

Instead, Canadian mice wait until you are not looking, then sneak quietly into your vehicle and find a warm spot to sleep. It may have hidden inside my sleeping bag.

I suspect this mouse got into my vehicle before we crossed the border and failed to declare itself to the border guard.

***

My friend, John, from college days, bought a retirement house in Camden, a charming little seaside town in Upper Maine. Everything there is charming, except a“masshole” from Boston who apparently moved there for the opportunity to annoy other people.

John lives in a lovely old two-story white wood frame house on High Street, on a slope overlooking the harbor. He says it is too much house when he is there alone.

If John had multiple personalities, it might be just the right amount of house.

A baseball fanatic, John wanted the Blue Jays to win the World Series. We spent the evening watching Game Four, during which he may or may not have wished ill upon Shohei Ohtani, the ace pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Blue Jays won, 6-2.

***

What has this got to do with the damn mouse? Patience.

Tired from driving in the cold, the rain, and the wind, I went to bed about 10 p.m. and woke up early in the morning. I tiptoed downstairs to let the dog out to pee. I filled his bowl with kibble and poured water from my one-gallon water jug on it to make gravy.

It was chilly, but I had on a flannel shirt and a cap and was enjoying a brisk morning.

While my dog was eating from his slow bowl, I grabbed my large carry-cup, which I keep filled with water, from the cup holder, and grabbed the last raisin bran muffin from the grocery store. I chugged down the cold water and munched on the muffin.

While watching my dog eat breakfast, which he does with gusto, and considerable slurping and crunching, I failed to notice anything unusual about the carry cup.

When I had taken the last swallow, however, the cup felt heavier than usual.

Odd. Why would it be heavier? So, I stared into the drinking hole on top. Then, to my horror, I saw, at the bottom of the plastic cup, a moist, dead mouse curled up in the nasty brown schmutz that accumulated down there periodically from my iced tea.

This picture is about life-sized (Or death-sized?)

Take that, Stephen King.

***

Question: What do you do when you have drunk water with a dead mouse in it?

I shouted an obscenity (pick any one, they will all do) and then spat loudly about a hundred times, using the official spitting noise, ptui, and tried to make myself vomit up the water, which refused to come up.

Next, I began to wonder if I was going to die, and of what, and how long it would take, and whether it would be slow and painful, or if it would happen all of a sudden?

(I don’t know about you, but periodically, I find it useful to envision how I will die. None of us knows. Despite the advent of AI, there is still no reliable source to ask.)

All this transpired in a few seconds, during which I vehemently wished that I could replay the morning scene, detect the mouse before drinking the water, and fling the carry cup with force far away from the campervan, then run over it at high speed.

***

How did this damn mouse sneak into the US, given aggressive efforts to stop illegal immigration? I happen to know the answer to this question: No MICE agents were on duty when this mouse immigrated illegally into the U.S.

“MICE” agents keep illegal mice out of the USA

(Sorry. Once again, I could not resist. No actual mice were harmed by MICE.)

***

My mind turned to how the mouse got into my cup. It occurred to me that my cup contained the only water in the van. The mouse must have been desperately thirsty.

I envisioned the scene of the crime.

The mouse clambered up the side of the carry cup, peered down through the drinking hole, trying to figure out how to get a drink. There were only a few inches of water left.

It leaned too far through the hole and fell into the cup. Once in the cup, no matter how hard the mouse tried, there was no escape. It grew cold and tired; then, it died.

I was both disgusted by a dead mouse and pitied it at the same time.

***

Next, I Googled whether to induce vomiting. The answer was no. Google said to call the Poison Control Center and tell them I drank dead mouse water.

The Poison Center guy picked up. I told him what happened. He said, and I quote, “Oh, yeah, people drink things with dead mice all the time. You’d be surprised.”

Next, I asked, “What are the potential side effects of drinking dead mouse water?”

He said, “Well, you may develop a strange craving for cheese.” He caught himself. “Sorry, couldn’t resist that. Actually, just monitor yourself for signs of disease: Fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and so on. The symptoms should begin in the next week or so.”

After my career in global health, I knew a fair amount about nasty, deadly viruses. ‘What kind of viruses are we talking about?” I asked, hoping he would not say Ebola.

“Well, mice can transmit nasty viruses to humans.” His short list included:

· Hantavirus

· Bubonic plague

· Leptospirosis

· Salmonellosis

Of all my near-death experiences to date, this one had the most options. It also offered me a considerable amount of time to think about how excruciating my death might be.

Hantavirus has a 30-40% mortality rate, while bubonic plague fatality can reach 60%.

“What should I do if I develop any symptoms?” I asked. “Go to an urgent care or an ER immediately,” he said. “They should be able to help you.”

I said, “I’m on a cross-country trip. What if I am in a remote area and can’t find a doctor or an ER?”

“Well,” he said, thoughtfully, “That could be bad.”

How comforting.

***

So, here I am, about a week later, in the Washington, D.C. area. I had my annual physical. I told the doctor about the mouse incident and asked him what I should do. He said, “No problem. Just call the office and make another appointment.”

Appointment? For hantavirus or bubonic plague? Fortunately, so far, I haven’t had symptoms. Oh wait. Shit. I can feel it starting. Must hurry…to… finish … the blog.

AARGH….

(Note: Substack regrets the sudden ending of this blog. Feel free to give it a like, not that it will matter to the author. The author asked Substack to remind you that staying home may be as bad for your health as taking a road trip.

For example:

· A man was found dead in his home along with his collection of over 100 snakes, many of which were venomous. His wife, also possibly venomous, was unharmed.

· Another man suffered injuries by stabbing himself in the chest to test a stab-proof vest that he bought online. His wife had asked him, “Does that thing actually work?

· A woman in India was killed by a falling coconut while she was washing dishes under a tree. Her husband saw her washing the dishes and said, “Knock yourself out!”

· But people also die at home from electrocution, poisoning, gunshot wounds, and many other causes. In recent years, people have died after freezing to death or from heat exhaustion. Or they have a stroke or a heart attack and do not get help in time.

On that note, we wish you a nice rest of the day. Enjoy your next trip.