the tale of alfie

a few weeks ago i was finishing up lunch when i heard some commotion coming from the shop. one of the guys had seen something moving around under one of the work benches. as it was october he thought perhaps someone was playing a little pre-halloween joke on him. you know, like one of those displays people put in front of their house that move as you approach. turns out it was not a joke, but in fact a real live white mouse in our very own shop! a brown mouse may not have caused as much interest i think, but his color combined with a seeming devil may care attitude as we watched him run back and forth through the shop raised our interest.
in fact he seemed to not be bothered by us humans as we edged ever closer to him. we began to speculate on his origins. there are apartments near the auto shop, and perhaps he had been someones pet and gotten away from his home. the other theory, which stretched the imagination, but gave him greater credential was that he was an escapee from the nearby reptile emporium that stocks "feeder mice" for large snakes and reptiles. although connie's was only about a tenth of a mile away, this certainly seemed to me at least a difficult distance for our intrepid little traveler.
wherever he came from, he provided increasing entertainment over the next several days. even as we speculated where he had come from, we all began to devise a way to capture our new house guest. i bought a live mouse trap that was basically a teeter-totter tunnel which would close a door when the little guy moved past the center fulcrum. he didn't seem interested. we left out peanut butter for him each night to make sure he stayed around. and i even cut the bottom of a paper cup and placed water inside for him. we attached a large funnel to a broom stick to try and trap him in the open but he escaped. i placed peanut butter in a cardboard box turned sideways outside my office window and waited until he was inside and then tipped the box right side up, but the little guy jumped out as i did so. we were all beginning to feel this mouse had outsmarted us all.


and still he kept up his game of hide and seek, showing up all over the shop, running along the ceiling and peeking out from under shelves and doorways. finally his daring got the best of him. we trapped him between cases of oil where we'd baited some of that irresistible peanut butter. the owner of the shop, mrs. b asked me if my kids would like to keep him as a pet. i thought of my wife's reaction and told her i'd think about it. meanwhile she picked up a really nice cage for him. by now he had become like a mascot around our shop. we put his new place together and got a kick out of watching him interact in his new home.


well, we did end up taking him home. although it was agreed that he would stay in the garage. my daughter named him "alfie" and they all took turns reading him a bedtime story that first night home. alfie turned out to be a tame little guy once he got used to his new apartment. although i always wondered how he would adjust to life back on the inside. the other morning barbara went outside to take the blanket off his cage and found him dead. i don't know if it was the cold, disease or if alfie just gave up as he had become a prisoner again.


my kids however, were also devastated. their new little pet, home less than a month was now gone. and so, we had ourselves a little funeral. i fashioned a suitable coffin for him out of the bottom of a pop secret box. (he loved popcorn and peanut butter) and we laid him to rest filling the box with flowers and notes. the kids all cried and i said a few words. we dug a hole at the base of one of our red apple trees and then laid a few more flowers on top. alfie, we hardly knew ye. and then just yesterday as my son aaron and i were playing catch in the backyard we watched as a white butterfly flew past us both, alighted right on the flowers above alfie's grave, paused there for a moment and then flew away again. so like alfie.