April 2000, Colorado Springs
I found that a HUGE deer mouse was living in my garage. The garage door had broken and provided a 3.5 inch clearance at one side. I have since fixed, but it provided a haven for this mouse to drag food into a very protected environment.
This mouse was about 6 inches long, excluding his tail, which was at least 5 inches in itself. NO he was not a RAT. He had a furry tail. I discovered him one evening when opening the interior garage door and having this mouse look up at me then waddle off. I stared in disbelief because he was hurrying as fast as he could. What a porker!
He discovered my bird seed up on a shelf, God knows how he pulled that hulk up there, so I placed the only trap I had with me, one of those sticky glue traps.
Monday night I check and I got him. Geeez he is big, so I go get my leather gloves to take him off the shelf. Grasping him around the body, he doubles over like a snake and bites my thumb piercing my heavy leather glove. Well chucka Mouse became airborn and bounced off the cement wall on the other side of the garage. He appeared to be quite dazed while still stuck on in the trap. Meantime blood is pouring off my thumb.
Well now I am panicked thinking I just got rabies, Hanta virus, whatever…. My wife calls the doctor who proceeds to go down the list of symptoms to watch in me. Meanwhile I find some channel lock pliers and carefully grab the sticky pad holding the dazed Mousezilla, and put into a cardboard box and set it outside the garage on the railroad tie retaining wall by the driveway.
Returning inside, my wife then asks me if I feel dizzy and nauseous. “WHAT!?”, I say, “No!”.
“Well the good news,” she says, “is that it appears that they don’t carry rabies and Hanta is pretty rare, but you need a Tetnus shot sometime in the next two days. And if my thumb falls off, call the doctor immediately.”
“WHAT?!” Doctor has some sense of humor… not well appreciated.
The bite is healing quite well, I sometimes think I feel dizzy.
I went to check out the box holding Mousezilla yesterday. There is this big hole in the lid and inside the box is the trap covered in hair, but no mouse.
There is now a bald butted, flat headed, GIANT Mousezilla roaming around my yard probably eating snakes and giving out the rabies he got from biting me. Woh be to you if you come upon a bald butted, flat headed Giant Mousezilla, with a dazed stare, foaming at the mouth, while you clean out your garage…..
I think I will go lay down, I am feeling a bit dizzy….