Pythons, Mice, & Confessions

I have a confession to make.

A couple of years ago, I took our children's' pet mice, drove them out to a remote country field, and flung them out the window. Off they ran to greener pastures...to freedom.

The kids were told that their mice went off to be "city mice". The younger ones believed it. The older ones probably thought they went to that great big Swiss Cheese Factory In The Sky. But if word got to the little ones that I had driven the mice in the dead of night and tossed them out into a pasture, the scars would run deep.

The honest truth was that mice make horrible pets. Sorry, I said it. They are noisy, messy, and smelly. Sure, they are cute when they run laps on their wheels, but the cuteness of that is not as endearing as the acuteness of their stench.

Plus no one was paying much attention to them, except for our Ball Python (the kids called it a BALD Python in honor of me). So off I ran like a gangster in "Goodfellas", looking in my rear view mirror to make sure no one was following me.

The last thing I remember seeing was the fuzzy rear end of each mouse as I tossed them out the window into a pasture.

Let's fast forward to the latest stories about how the Burmese Python is going to spread out across America. It already has a foothold in southern Florida and is seeking to spread out across the greatest nation that has ever existed.

Lucky us.

These aren't the cute, smaller sized pythons like the Ball Python we own. These buggers can grow to be 20 long and weigh 250 pounds. They pose a threat to pets (ask the family in Australia that had the family dog get devoured by one) and children. And also "small people" in general. Gasp. That gives me the shivers. I am short by most standards.

The reason the Burmese Python is spreading out is because people have released them into the wild.

Just don't do that!! Please!

Sure, I am guilty of releasing a couple of mice into a remote field, but they will hardly pose a threat to small children or pets. They probably got eaten up (man, I am glad my youngest kids are just now learning to read) that same night by an owl. Or maybe by a Burmese Python that was also released in the area.

But...gasp...what if they didn't?? What if those cute, tiny mice mutated into something bigger, uglier, and meaner?? What if the Cloverfield monster that attacked humanity in the recent movie of the same name was actually the offspring of those two mice.

Oh Heavens. I could never live with that guilt on my shoulders.

The moral of this story and confession?

Don't release pythons into the wild.

And remember that mice make lousy pets.