As I was heading out this morning, I noticed something moving in the swimming pool.
"That's funny. I don't remember the complex having two-inch-long otters..."
In fact, what we had was a mouse having a particularly difficult morning.
Full story in the extended.
Yup, a mouse in the pool. I quickly reached the conclusion the little dude was probably coming to -- escape was impossible. When you're two inches long, swimming pool walls are slick barriers of death:
That was it. I had to rescue the little dude (note the gender neutrality of dude here -- I can't tell a girl mouse from a boy mouse). Taking the lid from my lunch container, I gently put it into the water near the mouse, fully expecting a frightened response and a subsequent delicate effort to corral a panicked mouse.
Not so. Little dude was so exhausted, it just climbed on board without hesitation.
I put the lid down next to the pool, but little dude just kind of sat there. It could have been pure exhaustion -- who knows how long it had to swim before I showed up? I thought, though, that maybe it found the open space disconcerting, or just didn't quite believe in solid land anymore.
So I moved the lid, mouse and all, over by some thick bushes near the edge of the pool area. After a couple moments, little dude pulled itself over the edge of the lid and walked off into the plants, apparently a happier camper.
I can only imagine that in its mousy mind, it's thinking, "What kind of sick, sick person builds a lake with unscalable walls?"
But at least it made it through the morning.