2025, animals, books, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

Airport Mouse

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On Tuesday, we had several hours between our flight from Bismarck arriving in Minneapolis and our flight to Montreal departing. We settled in at our gate for a rather long wait.

Our gate for the Montreal flight was in the A Concourse, a section of the airport currently in the middle of renovation. There is new carpet, but no electrical outlets to charge phones and devices. There is unfinished drywall and exposed heating and pipes.

The monotony was enlivend by observing two little brown mice emerge from a hole in the wall and scamper under a row of seats, snatching any available crumbs on the floor. When startled, they went back in the hole until they felt safe to reemerge. Our fellow travelers were both alarmed and amused by their antics which went on for our whole wait. People took their photos. My main concern was that they didn’t run up my pant leg or end up as a stowaway in our carry-ons. A ticket agent commented this was nothing new, and she had seen them a few gates down earlier in the day. I thought that Airport Mouse would make a fine series of children’s stories.

What are some of the odder things you have seen in airports. Think up some plot lines for Airport Mouse.

21 thoughts on “Airport Mouse”

  1. Some years ago, but still in the era of TSA agents and screening, I walked onto a flight to Minneapolis from Mason City, IA, without going through any security check at all! Upon arrival in the Cities, though, I was very pleased to be put through security before entering the terminal (hence, “the system”). The brief flight northward had me musing all along about cracks in the wall.

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  2. You only thought those were the same two mice. Actually the wall is full of them, all passengers on the Murine Overhead Railway, all making their way to Canada as their predecessors did on the underground railway. They’re doing it for obvious reasons and because they can.

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    3. As feral mice they are naturally undocumented, not that documentation is any sort of guarantee. Their more refined cohorts, who work in scientific laboratories and even have registration numbers have an eye on the exits as well.

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  3. Once I lived in a place much warmer than this. I don’t understand the way the humans talk, but the sounds were different. The smells were different too, and the air was so warm and humid. There were lots of cracks in the walls, so my family and I could slip in and out easily. I had a big family too. I miss them.

    One day I slipped outside and crossed a hot, rough pavement surface. It was hot and I was exposed. Some humans were standing in a line in front of a ramp thing that led to a huge rumbling, hissing, smelly thing. I hid in the shade under the ramp. A small human placed a soft backpack down on the ground in front of me. I could smell some crackers in that pack, and a zipper was open. I followed the smell of the crackers and jumped in.

    Suddenly the human picked the pack up off the ground and I slid to the bottom. I slid all over the inside of the pack as the human slung it over his shoulder. There were crackers and sweet smelling things in there, but I kept sliding around, and I couldn’t tear the slippery stuff off. Finally the human sat down inside the hissing thing. He put the pack down, reached in, and pulled something out. I was gnawing on one of the wrappers to get at the yummy crackers, and his hand almost touched me! I got the crackers open and sampled a little bit of a corner. So good! I ate until I couldn’t eat anymore, then I fell asleep.

    I woke to being violently shoved around inside the backpack. The human was looking for something. There was a nice fabric nest in there and the human pulled it out. I fell out with it as the human pulled. I fell to the floor of the hissing thing, and clung to the wall under a seat. The human didn’t put the pack down again. There were noises, and more cracker crumbs fell on the floor for me. The hissing thing started to roar and I felt this awful pressure in my ears.

    Suddenly all the humans stood up and the small human picked up the pack. I had no place to hide amongst all the big feet so I clung to the edge. I went around a corner and found a long ramp. It was very cold. I’d never felt anything like that before and it wasn’t pleasant. I scampered quickly down the edge of the long ramp. I could hear the humans’ huge feet behind me. Suddenly it was warm again, and very flat and smooth. I ducked around the corner, then under a crack, and I found myself in a dark, warm place.

    I live here now. It’s a huge place full of flat, shiny, smooth surfaces. There is plenty to eat if you know how to find it. I have a new family now, and lots of babies. I still remember my family in that other place, and the smells, and the warmth. I have to find that small human’s pack again so I can get back. Meanwhile, I have plenty to eat and a growing family.

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  6. We did carpet throughout CVG airport that serves Cincinnati. It was a huge job involving a million square feet of product. Tearing up the existing carpet revealed literally hundreds of used razor blades embeded in the original glue. The long forgotten instalation crew left them behind. Airport Security “urged” us to not make an issue of the findings. The potential terrorist threat has been resolved.

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  7. For all of my traveling, I can’t pinpoint a specific interesting story that happened in an airport. I’m pretty much a heads-down-in-the-airport-and-on-the-plane traveler. While I love engaging with people in a lot of scenarios, airports and airplanes are not those places.

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  8. We were working on the platform above a luggage carousel at CVG and witnessed someone attempt to steal a bag. He ran up and over the carousel right into the tackle of a security guard. You’d have thought being cool and casual would be the thieving MO but not that fool. We think security had him under suspicion earlier. He was down, cuffed and hauled away in less than five minutes.

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  9. Can’t think of anything very odd, though I wish I could recall in detail some of the more flamboyant outfits on travelers I’ve seen. I do remember the first time I saw a shelf (or ledge?) of books and magazines with the sign that said essentially “take one/leave one” – the first “Little Free Library”! Would love to know what year that was.

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