Ayanony'mouse'

The workplace in a software company is a place where cleanliness pervades. All the surfaces are shining, no garbage lies around and the white lighting gives one a feeling, when one first enters the bay, of being in heaven ( the one with all the fairies,saints and clouds - all draped in white and totally aimless; not the beaches,girls,wine and riches one). The feeling soon fades away when the person realises that instead of everyone being contented and just lazing around, all of them are hunched forward in their seats, staring at the monitors and hammering away at the keyboard as if some wild orgy is going on and they are controlling the proceedings with their fingers! But when that person, whose name is one, realises that all they are looking at are just rows and rows of lines text, thats when he gets thoroughly nonplussed. But leave Mr. One for now.

So, when in this haven of all that is immaculate and spotless, one finds a mouse doing highly advanced aerobics, viz. leaping from the ground straight onto the top of the drawers, one doesn’t feel like clapping and hooting so much as themselves doing aerobics of no mean sort by leaping a clean 3 inches from the chair at the spectacle. This, I shamefully admit, was the case with me. Though I have killed two mice in my lifetime – both receiving a direct hit from one of my slippers as they were climbing the curtains, and thus, were silhouetted against the daylight, I let out a squeak just as a mouse of my dimensions might have emitted. But thankfully, I wasn’t made to feel ashamed of my reflexive behaviour by my team members. I think they were just glad that it was I who got to witness the egregious event, and not they.

The worst angle to this whole issue is of course, when a specimen of the species mus musculus6 chooses to expel his/her last breath in the vicinity of one’s workstation. Why they should chose to do so, I don’t know. If I had to guess, I would think a celebrity assassin’s mindset at work here ‘If I couldn’t become famous in life, I will become notorious in death.’ The point being, the brown creature’s last breath makes it difficult to take even one breath for sensitive noses like mine. So what do I do then? Call up facilities and services of course. The guy arrives promptly, armed not with whatever people are armed with to remove mice, but a room freshener can. And then, he proceeds to spray the noxious fumes all over the place, making the mild stench of the decomposing diminutive mammal almost welcome. On the brighter side, the development of this foul atmosphere gives me a perfect excuse to slip away for a refreshing cup of hot chocolate in the break-out area.

I wonder why it is called a break-out area. The two things which come to mind the moment one hears the phrase ‘break-out’ are a jail break and an outbreak of some disease. The presence of the furry little animals makes one wonder whether it is not just the first meaning which is intended.

But to be fair to mice, they don’t trouble us a lot. They are in general shy creatures, shunning any publicity and generally keep to themselves. Though I do hope someday they take a liking to the vast network of plastic vines crisscrossing the entire complex. I would gladly change the name of my blog from ayanonymous to ayanonymouse on that day.

P.S. Please see the first comment on my blog for shashank’s sake.