The Mass Mouse Mess

“I don’t eat sweets.” At least that’s what I protest when they’re offered. “No, thanks, I’m too sinful.” Partly a precaution against certain psycho-physical symptoms (feeling hung-over, lusty, spaced-out, depressed, sleepy), partly an attempt to give up what I can, for bona-fide spiritual health reasons, and perhaps partly a cheap badge of honor.

So when someone in the office offered me a homemade piece of burfi (for the uninitiated, a highly desirable milk fudge) off a black Styrofoam tomato tray, with a macadamia wedged in the center, what did I do? I gratefully accepted. Why? On the plea that I’ll give it to my wife (who’s trying to avoid sweets also). I tore a pink ‘WHILE YOU WERE OUT” note off the stack and used it as a napkin for my fudge, which I placed on the second tier of my particle board computer workstation. A couple times that day I wondered how I would carry it home. Then I forgot about it.

Our office is home to one brahmachari and untold hordes of mice. Every single day at least one is spotted, if not trapped). The house is so full of mice that there’s a new cache of mouse crap in the kitchen drawers every day. They probably lick the lingering aroma of sacred gourmet vegetarian cuisine off all the spoons. They’re certainly not shy about pissing and crapping all over them. I once left my lunchbox at the office overnight. The next day it was full of mouse crap. Every day brings another mouse sighting, another opportunity to either keep working on whatever project, or make an all-out attempt to corner and trap a rodent hiding in a closet.

Hours after I’d left for the day, I remembered the burfi, and the mice. I knew without a doubt those mice would be all over that burfi like . . .mice on burfi. I thought to immediately call the lone brahmachari there and, begging his pardon for the trouble, could he kindly put the fudge in the fridge. Then I forgot to call him. Until the next morning.

At some point, as I was beginning to get deeply into the day’s japa meditation, the part of my mind in charge of remembering worst case scenarios shocked me back into consciousness of the mouse and burfi drama. I began to imagine the potential consequences in gross detail. I had been sitting still, meditating on the mantras going in my ears and the breaths going in my nose. Now I began to perspire and pace the floor.

There was nothing I could do. The office was miles away, the building’s only resident human was at the temple. I imagined dozens of mice crowded around the chunk of milk fudge, dancing in jubilation, shredding the precious delicacy in an intoxicated ecstasy, excitedly passing urine and stool all over the desk and floor. I imagined the scene as I was arriving to work, having to vacuum up all the mouse crap and clean the mouse urine off the desktop, off all my papers, off the external hard drive, off all my computer cables.

I sweated some more, the perspiration of an acutely guilty conscience. Why didn’t I put it in the fridge as soon as I got it? Why did Mr. No Sweets accept it in the first place? What a waste of milk and macadamias and charity and labor and kindness.

I prayed to Krishna that, even though it would be most reasonable for me to find the burfi chewed, digested, and shat by an army of hungry mice, the office sprayed with droppings and shredded milk fudge, on the off chance that He would allow me to get away with the dull headed offense of leaving the equivalent of a brick of cheese unguarded in a mouse infested house, I would be so grateful that I would immediately give that burfi in charity to the nearest qualified recipient, and send a donation to my spiritual master.

Why hadn’t I made the endeavor to call as soon as I thought of it? Was I too ashamed of being known as a sloppy slacker that I was willing to go through the anxiety of causing a mouse crap melee that would require real man hours to properly clean up after? Why hadn’t I just put the burfi in the fridge immediately? What an idiot! Why didn’t I at least cover the burfi with a stainless steel cup?

Anyway, there was nothing I could do but wait and prepare myself to accept the inevitable. If the burfi was there, I would give it away. I would make a donation to my guru. If the burfi was shredded and piles of mouse stool were everywhere, as I fully expected to find, I’d just have to clean up the mess, and I would still give the donation.

In that morning’s Bhagavatam class, B.V. Madhava Maharaja was saying how if you don’t give charity to the brahmanas and Vaishnavas, then Durga will steal what you’ve got. I thought of the burfi.

After class, I walked to the office, resigned to accept whatever reaction was coming. The scene on my desktop did not match my imagination. The burfi was sitting there, untouched. The only evidence it had been left there all night was a slowly spreading grease stain on the WHILE YOU WERE OUT note.

It looked a little dried out, but fine. I said a prayer of thanks to Krishna, threw out the notepaper, put the burfi in a little stainless steel katori, and gave it to a friend who recently had kindly given me a series of lifts home on days when my wife needed the car.