A tiny, furry - and hungry - guest

February 23, 2005

I called him Mickey.

Original? No.

But heck, I didn’t know his name was Limmie Winks until just a few minutes ago.

Winky, as I’m going to call him, is a furry little mouse who lives with us at Camp Gunslinger.

I’ve run across him twice now. Well, technically he’s run across me.

Winky has turned the rooms in this hall into one big mouse suite. At the far end is a room where the crazy bomb guys live.

They’re the guys who defuse bombs or safely detonate roadside bombs so they won’t blow up on troops.

Well, Winky chewed a hole in the concrete wall between their room and the big room where the Iraqi Army trainers live. Those boys are my neighbors. They spend their days patrolling and training Iraqi Army soldiers.

Winky used to run freely through the 1-inch gap under the door between my room and the trainer boys until the day he ran across the toe of my pink flip flop.

That was the day Winky and I met.

I didn’t like him much, then.

I borrowed duct tape and weather-stripped the bottom of both doors in my room — the one that opens to the hall and the one that connects the two rooms.

Today, I realized my effort was futile.

As I sat here writing, I noticed Winky’s furry body in my room as he stood on his hind feet looking at the duct tape blocking the bottom of the hallway door. He appeared to be snacking on something.

When I got up to open the door for him, he ran behind my body armor which was propped up against my duffle bags. I moved the duffel bags, which were in front of the adjoining door, and searched for Winky. That’s when I saw one of my gloves move.

I don’t blame him, my gloves are blue and fuzzy. Quite warm, really.

As I tried to figure out what to do about him, I noticed the corner of the duct tape under the adjoining door had been neatly chewed away.

Winky refused to let me turn his three-room suite into a two-room house.

A few minutes later he emerged from my glove and wandered back into the boys’ room.

I ran into Staff Sgt. Josh Wheeler outside and asked about their pet mouse.

That’s when I discovered I’d been calling him by the wrong name.

“We call him Limmie Winks,” said Wheeler.

Winky spends most of his time in the trainers’ room. Eating is pretty good there. Wheeler shares crumbs with him.

“He’s started sitting in the open area by my bed and just looking up at me with those black beady eyes,” he said.

And in the last couple of days, Winky has started squeaking.

“He talks now. He never made a noise for months and now he squeaks and chatters,” Wheeler said.

A while back, Winky had a visitor, according to the boys.

“I don’t know if he invited someone over or what,” Wheeler laughed. “But it was noisy in here for a while. Now it’s just Limmie Winks again.”

He told of hearing a mouse running around a pasta bowl, rattling the dried noodles as he feasted. And the creatures ate 20 packages of cheese and crackers. And Winky even tipped over a Sprite bottle once in a feeding frenzy. The boys were sleeping and heard the clank.

They look up and find Winky on top of a monstrous shelf next to the toppled bottle.

He’s little, but strong.

“Sometimes at night when we hear him, we put on our [night vision goggles] and try to see him in the dark,” Wheeler said. “We just like to see what he’s up to.”

My guess? Eating.

Posted by Amy at February 23, 2005 06:03 PM