Like all couples, or at least most, we had our pet names for each other. Actually, they were simply our college nicknames. I'd ended up with the moniker "Mouse" for somewhat unclear reasons, allegedly having something to do with a resemblance to Matthew Broderick's character with that name in the movie Ladyhawke.
Janet had acquired the name Dormouse. She told me she was called that because she fell asleep at parties. She also had a near religious love of tea. I never found her actually in a teapot, but she seemed to try at times.
Sure, it was silly, but so were we, and without much apology. So that's what we always called each other. Dormousie and Mouse had a nice symmetry. "Mice mate for life," she told me more than once.
`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'
Perhaps it was the nicknames that inspired the two of you to get mice as pets? Mice just don't live long enough. Two years is not quite enough life span for a pet unless you have a really short attention span. Since neither of you seemed to suffer from a short attention span I was greatly relieved when the two of you moved on to dogs! Janet was the only person that I knew that would spend as much money on a mouse at the vet as other people spend on dogs and cats. It was very sweet, but graduating to dogs was probably a better move.
ReplyDeleteNanette
I think you're right, if I recall. I got Janet the first mouse, Mishka, because I was going out to sea and I wanted her to have company. As silly as it sounds, I think it helped her. And mice are fun animals, except for what you said about the life span.
ReplyDeleteDogs were Janet's One True Love, of course, but it would have to wait until I wasn't out at sea all the time.