2004-04-22 at 2:47 p.m.

I officially graduated on Monday, but I'm going to refrain from talking about it until the photos are developed. (There's something about visual aids that really brings a tedious story to life, isn't there?)

Instead, I shall talk about the mouse that has taken up residence in my flat.

Normally, I'm not a big hater of mice. I think they're rather cute, in a small, stinky, disease spreading sort of way. But I've had run-ins with Peromyscus maniculatus before, and each time, something the mouse has done has brought me to a breaking point.

For example, there was my encounter with The Dancing Mouse. Sure, he was cute at first, with his twitchy little nose and his cute little tail and his defecation-based stovetop dance routine. But then he started eating my potatoes, and his furry little ass was toast.

Later, I had a run-in with The Mouse (who, sadly, never got a catchy nickname). His demise was assured after I discovered him eating my bread. The lesson to be learned from both of these now deceased rodents is to never, ever come between me and my carbohydrates.

When Heater Mouse (so called because he lives in a little hole under my heater, from which he makes loud scritchy-scratchy noises when I'm trying to watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) moved in, I wasn't too worried. He wasn't eating my food, he wasn't pooping all over the place, and hey, he was kind of cute. I thought we may even be able to enter into some sort of symbiotic relationship, wherein I would provide him with food scraps and he would freak out potential burglers. But, like Dancing Mouse and Nickname-less Mouse before him, he crossed the line by eating something.

He ate through the phone cable that connected me to the internet.

It was funny how fast all my symphathy for the little furry bastard disappeared after that.

I've laid out poison (and, obviously, bought myself a replacement phone cable) but the little sod is still scampering round the house. However, I notice he's eaten some of the poison near his heater hidey-hole, so I'm thinking that his cable-chewing days are numbered.

I'm sure that he'll die inside a wall cavity and stink up the house for weeks, just to spite me.