I think I just met the stupidest mouse in the world, which is saying alot considering we are talking about a mouse.

As I walked up to the door to my apartment building, I saw one of the neighbourhood cats sitting on the sidewalk, so I decided to take a short detour to say hello. As I got closer I realized it was intently watching something on the sidewalk in front of it, and as I got even closer I realized that, yes, it was a mouse. But it was quite alive and quite unharmed, and the cat was pretty much just watching it. As I stepped closer however, the mouse decided it was time to make a break for it and started to scuttle along the sidewalk, cat in tow.

I caught up to the two of them and picked up the cat so the mouse could make its escape, and what does it do? It stops. The mouse just sits there as the cat tries to wriggle out of my arms. So I blew on the mouse and it continued for another few inches and then stopped again. I bent down to hurry it along a bit more, and had to put the cat back on the ground, but (being a cat) it was distracted by the fact that I was scratching its head, so the mouse was still safe.

And what does the mouse do? It turns around and walks right back under the cat’s feet thereby attracting the cat’s attention again. The cat only made a feeble attempt at actually catching the mouse, opting instead to just watch it and swat near it every once in a while.

This was repeated two of three more times (me holding the cat and trying to get the mouse to run – without actually touching the mouse ’cause you know how germy they are – and the mouse just turning around and scurrying right back into the cat’s grasp) before I finally gave up and bid them good riddance – the mouse for being so dumb, and the cat for not knowing what to do with a mouse when it is under its paws.