The Mouse came home with me for Christmas this year, because his family doesn’t do Christmas and because he loves him some Hubleys, and, oh, because there would be pie. I’m not quite sure he knew what he was getting into, though, because shortly after my aunties and other relatives of the female variety determined that he was not, in fact, my boyfriend, they figured out that he was, in fact, the Drunken Mouse. And then there was a small scene worthy of a celebrity.
“Wait – YOU’re the Drunken Mouse?” my cousin said.
“Um, yes.”
“How’d I miss that?”
“Well,” I offered. “He’s shy.”
“Shy! SHY! Oh, you’ll have to forget about being shy. We’ll fix that.”
Next thing I knew, the Mouse was standing in the middle of the kitchen, clutching a bottle of beer like a liferaft, while a cat, a dog, and two toddlers ran around and around him in a blurry circle, just like in the old cartoons. Apparently, my cousin and several of my aunties had decided to make sure that he lived up to his name, and had been plying him with beer. And now that the under 3-feet-tall set were up to their usual antics, well, he was sort of stuck.
Anyway, fair warning: If you spend Christmas at my family’s house, we will divine your secret identity, ply you with booze, stuff you with pie, and sic the toddlers on you.
Jennie Smash 
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