Pointless Pondering of Mice

We've all seen them, the cutesy depictions of mice. There are cartoons about them showing humorous human-like qualities. Who can resist such sweeties as Micky and Minnie Mouse or the antics of Tom and Jerry? Then there are the cartoon mice with superpowers like Mighty Mouse who's always ready to save the day. One thing the cartoon mice have in common is they all love cheese. They will go beyond human capabilities to get cheese!

But let's do some pointless pondering just because. Where does all the cutesy stuff about mice come from and what about the idea that mice like cheese? I have a theory about the cutesy stuff. See, I don't like mice whether they be wild or laboratory and having had experience with both, I still don't like them. I don't like them outside or inside my house! In fact, I simply don't want anything to do with mice, the real kind but even I can get a chuckle or two out of the cartoon variant of mice. So my theory is some well meaning parent at sometime made up some cutesy tale about mice to calm the fears of their kids. Those kids told other kids and the whole thing snowballed. Artists and cartoonists got wind of this tale and jumped on the bandwagon. The rest is history! So what about mice liking cheese? Really, why would mice like cheese? It's not part of their natural diet and given their druthers would prefer not to eat cheese. The myth that mice like cheese likely came from some parent telling their kids to eat their cheese before the mice got it and since the kids had more fear of mice than cheese they complied confirming the idea that "it's always the parent's fault". The perpetuation of this myth was enabled by fairy tales, artists and cartoonists as well. Then Hollywood got a hold of both myths and made heros of the disease ridden little varmints! What were they thinking?

Well that's my pointless pondering for the day, I'm off to do something a bit more constructive.