a mouse, a mouse, a kingdom for my mouse.

At the risk of shitting on Shakespeare, I just have to say...

My poor mouse.

I know it sounds nuts, but I really do have a pet mouse. Two, actually.

I didn't really name them, and refer to them even now as "the black one" and "the fat ass."

However, since "the black one" while descriptive, doesn't sound like much of a name, I decided to call her "Mousie" or "Blackie." Well, I kind of had to fake like that's been her name, when I drove to the clinic. (Drove to the clinic, got lost, was forced to drive back home again, and then drive back to the friggin' clinic. It took me an hour to drive 4.4 miles. For a mouse.)

(And, incidentally, since "the fat ass" sounds just plain rude, I call "the fat ass" mouse "Martha Stewart." Maybe "fat ass" is less rude than calling her Martha Stewart, I don't know, but she's fat, blonde, bitchy, and makes a mean mouse nest, so it works.)

Any way, the black one is My Favorite Mouse Child. She's friendly, inquisitive, enjoys climbing, and isn't shy at all.

However, the black one is also Very Sick. And I feel I have been a Very Bad Mouse Parent, watching her get more and more snuffily, and thinking "oh, she'll get better."

Any way, I think it was Hagrid of the Harry Potter books who said it best when he tells Ron to forgive what he thinks is Hermione's misguided love for her cat, saying, "Well, people can be a bit stupid about their pets."

And how.

Case in point: I took a little pestilential creature worth a few pennies to a specialty vet clinic today, and paid eighty bucks for a vet to look at her and tell me what I already knew: mousie is very ill, and is probably going to die from pneumonia any day now.

He gave me a a milliliter of antibiotics to assuage the Pet Owner Guilt, and declined to put her down, although he didn't think she was going to make it.

I call tell he was thinking this way, because he started giving me the same speech about the mouse that we give to family members of human patients when we think their people are super sick and won't make it.

It goes like this, "Well, we can hope for the best, but really, you need to prepare yourself..."

Translation: "You're loved one is a goner."

David, in all his dry humor, encapsulated the comi-tragic scope of the thing when he said: "I think he was thinking he'd save you the extra fifty bucks to put her to sleep, considering what you spent already on a vet visit for a pet that cost you less than a Happy Meal to purchase."

Yes, thank you, Nurse David, for that wonderfully heartwarming sentiment. I'm sure the hospice patients all love your warmth and sensitivity in times of crisis.

Clown.

Any way.

So, I'm doing the Fake Hope Thing, like when a stroke victim's wife says hopefully, "Oh, he's doing so much better today! See, he's practically talking!" and I'm looking at the patient, and he looks at me, and I'm thinking, at best, he has expressive aphagia, which is nowhere near talking coherently at all.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I'm pretending the Fake Antibiotics (I guess they're real, but whatever) are making her feel better, even though I can practically hear the poor mouse's agonal breathing from across the room.

It's very silly (my sadness over my little mouse) because I've only had her as a pet for about a year and a half, and she's just a little mouse, and it's hardly like her suffering matters in the great big plan of God's Craptastic Universe.

But, I feel very guilty I can't give her more palliation, as opposed to stupid fakey doses of antibiotics. I think the vet is convinced I will feel better about her death if I go through the motions of allopathic cure, but I just feel like that time they made me tie down that demented patient so she could die this really crappy, prolonged death.

I do draw the line at mouse CPR or radiographic studies of her lungs for definitive diagonsis, though.

And, who knows. Maybe the abx will do the trick, and she'll be able to breathe better, and I'll feel less guilty about not putting her to sleep.

Although, based on my experiences in the hospital, I sort of doubt it.