Campus Mouse, Country Mouse

In Aesop’s fable “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse,” a mouse from the hinterlands visits his big-city cousin who has long bragged about the superior fare city larders offer. The country mouse finds that while city food is rich, his cousin can partake only by risking his life in a trap or at a cat’s jaws. After narrowly avoiding being eaten on one of these death-defying food forays, the country mouse returns home to enjoy his humble meals in peace.

Unfortunately, not all country mice have learned their lesson about the dangers of urban life. With the onset of cool weather, mice have scampered from their bucolic country holes into Lowell House, where their presence has ignited a round of panicked posts to the House e-mail list. While preliminary reports of wildebeest and Tasmanian devil sightings have been unsubstantiated, concerns about the mouse infestation seem valid. How better, for instance, to explain the mysterious lack of food in Lowell dining hall?

There is some hope that the mice rampage may be halted: Lowell Superintendent Jay Coveney has gallantly offered to seal off the radiator pipes of any students who register complaints about mice, citing this strategy’s stunning success in keeping the Yard dorms vermin-free.

If radiator-pipe-sealing proves ineffectual, though, Coveney must resort to more coercive means—possibly including, but by no means limited to, the introduction of some really tough cats—to remove the mice from Lowell House. These displaced country mice must learn what Aesop knew so well: the city is no place for a mouse.