Mouse in the House

It's amazing the impact one of the planet's smallest creatures can have on the human race. What creature? The mouse.

I'm in Orlando on an assignment with my coworker, Mandy. Mandy and her husband, Bill, are here because they love to feed the mouse. Yes, Mandy, you ARE obsessed with the rodent. We all have our obsessions, mine is little Japanese trees, yours is a mouse. That's neither good nor bad, not judging here. Just a somewhat twisted observation.

I'm an old conspiracy theory kind of guy. I believe there is really only ONE company in charge of the world. That single company just gives us tens of thousands of smaller company names to throw us off. They actually own them ALL. EVERY business on this planet. What company is it that rules the world? General Motors? Definitely NOT after last week's stock market plunge. AIG? Uh, no. Here's my theory - the Mouse is in the House. The White House that is. At the bottom of the US Government and all its businesses lies the mouse. That damned mouse.

You see, it's all a BIG conspiracy. Mickey has been brain-washing us for years, "Give me your money. Give me your money." He started back in the mid 1900's, when I was just a wee lad. Ever heard the Mickey Mouse Club song? "Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C. K-E-Y. M-O-U-S-EEEEE!" Once you sing that little ditty, you CANNOT erase it from your mind. It's like indelible ink on the soul. Only a lobotomy will remove it.

The mouse is EVERYWHERE! Especially in Orlando! Even the PILOT of the jet I flew on to get here prefaced his spiel with, "We'll be heading to the House of the Mouse today." That's scary. Right or wrong, our country has separation of church and state; pilots who are responsible for hundreds of lives should NOT refer to Orlando as the House of the Mouse. It's scary.

In short, who or what is responsible for the soaring cost of gasoline? I believe it's the mouse. The stock market crash? The mouse. Mankind's inhumanity to mankind? The mouse.

Now I don't know just how the little creature is pulling it off, but hey, if an ant can move a rubber tree plant, well, I rest my case.

I'm staying OP (that's Disney for On-Property). So naturally, the mouse is emblazoned EVERYWHERE! The buses, the carpets, the toilet paper ... I'm actually seeing the silhouette of a mouse in things where it's not! I SWORE I saw a mouse shape in a sailor's knot in a restaurant tonight. Mandy, who has mice on her SHOES, insists I was just seeing things, that it was just a sailor's knot. I KNOW better. The mouse can't fool me. I see him in the wallpaper. Cracks in the concrete. He's all around us.

And as I write this in my Disney hotel room, I swear I can hear the pitter-patter of little mouse feet just outside my hotel room door. He's coming to silence me.

That mouse is a sly one, he is.