The Mice Get Their Revenge

Like a lot of young children growing up, I watched a lot of cartoons. Of course, we didn't have channels like the Cartoon Network at the time, so my cartoon viewing was limited to the early hours before going to school and of course the epic Saturday morning marathons. One cartoon that I watched quite regularly was Tom and Jerry, though I don't know why because more often than not, it made me pretty angry.

First of all, the premise of the show was just ludicrous. A mouse consistently beating the crap out of and outsmarting a cat? That's just not how things work in the real world. Sure, there are plenty of instances where a mouse gets away from a cat, but seldom do you see that mouse pull a frying pan out from under his stomach -- how does he hide it down there -- and wallop the cat upside his head. Of course, cartoons aren't exactly supposed to be realistic, so it was pretty unfair to hold it against Tom and Jerry.

In truth, I probably wouldn't have minded as much if the mouse had been named Tom and not the cat. It's pretty devastating to a kid's self esteem to see a cat named after him being beaten all the time.

I didn't want to admit that to myself at the time, so I stuck with my bullshit "unrealistic" excuse. Well, it turns out my ire with the show may have been misguided. So mice don't beat up cats all the time, so what? Maybe they were all just biding their time and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. An opportunity that came this week in Canada.

Over 100 cats were killed in a fire at an animal shelter in Toronto, causing countless numbers of little girls to break out in tears. Here's the thing, though, guess who started the fire.

An initial report from the fire marshal says mice or rats chewing through electrical wires in the ceiling are likely to have sparked the blaze.

Offers of help have been pouring in from animal lovers across Canada.

"It's unfortunate and ironic that mice caused the fire that killed the cats," Toronto Humane Society spokesman Ian McConachie told the BBC News website.

"Unfortunately, the mice probably perished in the fire as well," he added.

So mice are like suicide bombers. They've grown so tired of being oppressed by the evil cat population that they're now willing to die in order to take the lives of felines everywhere.

We should all be very scared. Well, cats should be anyway.