If it is considered offensive to make disparaging remarks about those of the feminine gender,
I guess that makes me an offender
when I say I don't understand why, if rabbits are cuddly, and kittens are cute, and furry things in general are considered quite nice,
women feel the obligation to be afraid of mice,
even on a farm,
where they may be a bit of a nuisance, but don't do much what you could really call harm.
Now the farmer's wife of my story was by nature slow to wrath,
but maybe on the day in question she had been disturbed by the telephone ringing while she was enjoying a leisurely bath,
or someone had left a gate open and the hens had got loose,
or perhaps it was just her husband being more than usually obtuse.
Only she was annoyed by three particular mice who were blind
- if that, in these days of political correctness, isn't considered unkind.
Oh, let's just say they couldn't see very well,
but they were quite good at finding their way by smell,
unless they used their whiskers and navigated by feel
as they followed the lady of the house around in the hope of getting a free meal.
However, this time, when she saw the mice in the dairy she broke her golden rule.
She lost her cool.
In fact she threatened to get them with her cleaver,
but either they were deaf as well as blind, or they didn't understand English, or they simply didn't believe her,
and by the time they had turned round and decided to go
it became apparent they were too slow.
Yes, she got all three at once, but I am glad to say
that as she only chopped their tails off, they lived to scamper another day.