NCSSM Oral History - 1994-1995


Mice in Beall
Spring 1995

I was in Beall 01 with three other girls for a Cooking Club meeting. You know how that room is semi-circular and has different levels of seats? Well, we noticed after a bit that there were little brown mice coming out from behind that black plastic flooring S&M seemed to have so much of. Maybe we were just weird, but we thought they were cute.

Caroline (one of my cohorts) happened to have a bag of Pringles (yes, a bag; not a can) so we got the bright idea of feeding the mice. We placed a couple of Pringles near the mouse hole and waited. I felt like Marty Stouffer on "Wild America." A few minutes later, one of the mice got brave and went for the chip. Unfortunately, Pringles are shaped in such a fashion that the mouse couldn't pull it through its hole. After it tried pulling, the little mouse decided to try pushing the chip, but to no avail. By this point, us four humans watching the proceedings were about to bust a gut, we were laughing so hard. Finally, in a stroke of genius, the mouse broke the chip into smaller pieces and pulled them through its little hole one at a time. See, even the mice are smart at S&M.

But the "tail" (sorry, couldn't resist) does not end here... A few days later, I was sitting in Dr. Miller's Brit Lit class (also in Ground Beall) when all of a sudden, Amanda Green -who just happened to be sitting next to Dr. Miller- lets out an ear-splitting screech. The cause? A little brown mouse was making a mad dash across the classroom in the middle of a lecture on some aspect of Shakespeare. Dr. Miller looked as if someone had banged two pots together right at his ears. I have to admit that I almost climbed on top of my desk. Sometimes I wonder if those mice or their great-grandchildren are still there...

Contributed by Julie Munoz '95


Posted 5/5/99 by Kyle Barger