by Robert P. Herbst

Created on: February 13, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Rodney the Recluse Rodent

Rodney Gray Rodent, is a mouse. He lives in a hole in the brick wall behind the toilet, in the downstairs bathroom, at the back of our building. The building is on the busy corner of Green Street and Jefferson Street, in the center of our beautiful town of Mount Perry, Florida. There are really only two things Lyudmila and I find particularly disturbing about this arrangement.

1) Rodney puts in an appearance at the most inopportune times.
and
2) Rodney has a great number of friends and family who come to call, then decide to stay.
The other day for instance, a lady customer asked to use the facilities. Once the lady was comfortably and quietly settled, you know who decided it would be a great time to check out the bathroom floor. As you might have guessed, pandemonium instantly broke out in the bathroom.
The lady already having climbed onto the toilet, apparently attempted to climb to the top of the water tank which supplied water to the toilet. This caused the tank to break away from the two little mounting bolts which secured the tank to the top of toilet itself.
The resulting flood caused Rodney to seek higher ground. The rest of his family and friends also concerned for their safety, emerged from the hole in back of the toilet and began trying to find higher ground themselves.
About this time the lady who was still scrambling for the high ground herself, must have stepped on the toilet's water supply line. The line broke free of the water level control valve in the toilet tank. As the water supply line is a flexible plastic hose like affair, it began to whip about because of the water pressure. It behaved very much like an unattended fire hose.
Now water sprayed freely from ceiling to wall in rapid succession as the broken hose whipped back and forth soaking everything in the small bathroom. The panic stricken lady continued to try for higher ground to get away from the terrified mice. The poor little mice were swimming for their lives in the water on the floor. They were also trying their best to find something they could climb up on to get out of the water.
Our hot water heater sits on a shelf up over the toilet. This was apparently one of the places the frantic lady tried to claw her way up to. Unfortunately, the shelf was not strong enough for the combined weight of the lady and the hot water heater full of water. It collapsed with a mighty crash.
As it collapsed it broke the sewer line which carries waste water from our apartment

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