MYRON THE MOUSE

My grandchildren are always asking me to tell them stories about their father Mark’s mischievous ways when he was a boy. The story of his clever pet Myron the Mouse came back to me.

Myron was a tiny white domestic mouse, I can’t remember how he came to us. Mark named his mouse after the one in The Brady Bunch and the two became inseparable. Myron seemed to be able to distinguish Mark from his brothers and would happily spend most of his time in his pocket.

One Sunday, Mark had just finished serving as an altar boy at mass and met the rest of the family outside the church where we were waiting for him. I was mortified when I noticed that Myron was in his shirt pocket. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mark proudly told the family how well Myron had behaved during mass, curled up in the pocket of his altar-boy robe.

If Myron had not ‘known’ to stay put, he could have caused a real panic; I have this terrible image of what could have been: children and adults alike screeching in terror as they ran from him, others climbing over the pews to capture him, the priest not amused.

As far as I know this was the only time Myron came with us to mass but Mark really was cheeky, so who knows?