The Art of Negotiation

“It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

My female human had read that out loud just a few days ago.

One evening a few days ago, I was lounging, when all of a sudden, in the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I quickly turned and was just about to pounce……….. when I came face to face with a young mouse.

The look of shear terror on his little face stopped me in my tracks!

I looked at this tiny thing and realized how young he was. He could not be more than a few months old.

Feigning indifference, I started to wash myself.

“Well, little one,” I asked, “What is a mouse like you doing in my house …eh, I mean, my apartment?

“I… I…” stuttered the little mouse, shivering, “I am looking for adventure!” He blurted out.

“Adventure, huh! I can give you that” I whispered. “Do you know what a well oiled feline hunter, like myself does?

The little mouse nodded his head. “ My parents told me!”

“ So you know that the job of a feline like myself is to chase you and kill you! That is what my humans expect!”

“Oh,” said the little mouse as he rung his front paws together nervously, ”Oh”

I squinted my eyes and looked at the mouse. “See now that is adventure!”

I watched as the little mouse squirmed.

“But,” I said, as I licked my paws, “I could be convinced to make an exception.” I lifted one of my eye-brows and looked at the mouse again.

“But” I said as I rubbed my chin, “We need to plan this. My humans need to think that I’ve graduated to a mouser. You need to come out when they are home. Then I chase you and you have to pretend to be scared.

“No problem” hick-upped the mouse, “I am scared”

“Then you run away to hide. We need to do this a few times so that my humans will think I’ve done a good job and caught a few of your sort. Then after a few weeks, we do the major production. I catch you and you pretend to be dead. I’ll let you go under the cabinet. That is when you run for your life and never come back again. Then the humans will think I killed you. You are safe, and I get the title of mouser. What’ya think?”

The mouse nodded his little head.

I stuck out my paw to shake his tiny one.

“Deal! What is your name anyway?”

“Charlie, said the mouse”

A few nights later, Charlie bravely walked out onto the living room floor. My humans were very surprised and I jumped up and ran towards him. Charlie froze. “Run,” I hissed under my breath, “Run,” Charlie ran and I pretended to catch him. Poor Charlie fainted and I gently laid him on the floor under the armour. I went to check on him a few minutes later and he was gone.

We repeated this performance for a few weeks. I got a lot of praise from my humans, Charlie got his adventure and I graduated to mouser. All and all, a win –win situation.

On the last night that we were to do our performance, Charlie walked out onto the living room floor once again and I pounce on him. Then, Charlie started running as if his life depended on it. When he got to a hole in the wall, he stopped, turned around and winked at me. With a “thumbs up”, he turned and sauntered off. As per our agreement, Charlie never came back again. A win-win negotiation…………… or was it? I miss the little fella.