RUSH: Folks, I have a story here. This is uncanny. Do you remember the story I’ve told a couple of times when I lived in Sacramento, October of ’84 to June of ’88. My first real house. I mean, I had a shack in Overland Park, Kansas. I don’t really count that. First real house was in Sacramento, and shortly after moving in I heard a noise that I just knew was not a good noise, back in the days where I could hear. And it was in my laundry room. It sounded like something behind a wall, and you know when there’s something moving behind a wall, it isn’t good. First time homeowner, oh, no, panic city.

So I walked in there and looked around, and the last thing I did was look in the trash can. It was a white, waist high trash can, a little shorter than that. There was no garbage bag in it, and there was a mouse in there. A little mouse, trying to get out, jumping up and that’s what I was hearing. Aw, jeez, oh, no. So I figured if there’s one thing there’s gotta be more, and, no, no, not this, not in my first beloved house. So I have to get rid of this, but I don’t want to just take it out there and dump it. It will come back in. I was also concerned about what other people thought of me in those days, so I didn’t want to go out in the daytime holding a trash can and dumping it in the yard, thereby showing the neighbors I had a mouse. I didn’t want the neighbors knowing I had a mouse in the house, ’cause back then, as I say, I cared what people thought.

So I said, “I’m gonna have to kill it.” And, I mean, I’m not a violent person. I didn’t really know how. I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t think a gun would be appropriate for a mouse anyway. So the mouse was trying to get out of there. The first thing I did, I went and got a can of Pam, kitchen spray, and I soaked the mouse. I thought it would die, being poisoned. But it liked it, started licking itself like crazy. It’s pure fat. It loved it. The mouse started licking itself, it was in heaven. So then I take the wastebasket and I just shook it as hard as I could side to side with the mouse banging around inside, and that didn’t quite do it.

Anyway, you’ve heard the story. Eventually I waited for nightfall, took the mouse outside, dumped it right next to the driveway. I went out a few hours later and it was gone, so I figured nature had taken its course, something had come along.

So guess what, there was a story here in the UK Daily Mail: “Man releases trapped mouse into the wild rather than exterminate it… only for hawk to swoop and kill it within seconds.” Do you realize the number of stories told on this program encompassed by this one story? Remember the oil spill at Prince William Sound? Joseph Hazelwood, the captain, got drunk, the Exxon Valdez went aground, opened a hole and oil spilled out of there. And remember the people with Dawn dishwashing detergent wiping off otters? Anyway, they grabbed otters and a number of animals and they tried to clean them. And they did grab up an otter or two and they cleaned them and they were ready to release them back into the wild after the oil had gone, and nature took care of it pretty quickly.

Prince William Sound got back to normal pretty quickly, surprised everybody, including the environmentalist wackos. They had a big release ceremony for these two otters, rolled them down in a cage, and the kids were out of school, and a band was playing, and they’re very proud they saved a couple of otters. They opened the gates of the cage and the otters jump out and they swim and they rolled over on their backs and waved at people. The people, “Ooh, ah, isn’t that cute, they’re waiving at us. They’re thanking us for saving them.” It wasn’t long that a killer whale came up and ate ’em, with the kids watching. The band stopped playing, and the kids looked at Mommy, “Mommy, what happened?” And the only thing Mom could do, “Well, that’s nature.” Shamu came along and ate the otters.

The mouse in the trash can. Here’s a guy, “A man carefully released a mouse he had captured back into the wild rather than kill it only for a hawk to swoop and kill it within seconds. The unfortunate series of events was captured on camera by a friend who witnessed the doomed release. The YouTube clip begins with the man, is not identified, as he takes the mouse to a park in a bin to release it back into the wild. He reaches into the plastic dustbin and tries to coax the small animal out onto the ground covered in patches of snow.” He had named the mouse Whiskers.

“The mouse seems reluctant to move so the man tilts the bin and as it slides out he says ‘Come on Whiskers you’re free! Good luck.’ The tiny brown mouse darts out the grey bin and scampers across the leaves. When the person filming the video asks the captor how he feels, the man declares ‘I feel relieved that he is not going to wake me up in my bed anymore. I feel kinda sad — I just got to know him.'” And they actually captured on video the hawk dive bombing on the mouse, and that was the end of it. I saw this story, I said, “How many stories have we told on this program that are encapsulated by this one?” Who knew? This was from the UK Daily Mail. It prints out to five pages, a lot of pictures. I don’t know what town. Doesn’t matter.

But it’s all about how the guy feels very sad. He just saved the mouse’s life, Whiskers, and in the background a hawk is seen swooping down getting his claws into the newly released animal, and as he flies off with the mouse, the man turns around in shock and says, “Oh, no!” And the guy videoing it starts to laugh. He says, “No, no, are you kidding? He didn’t last five minutes. Oh, my God, I’m a terrible person! Oh, my gosh, let’s get outta here.” The guy was devastated when he saw the hawk kill his mouse. And he thought he was being humane. What a sad, sad story.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, for those of you that don’t know, a mouse like the one I had will usually only live a year in the wild, and that number is even lower if the mouse is around guns. But it will live five years in captivity. A house mouse will live five years in your house, but only one year outside your house. Of course, the five years in your house goes down if you have guns. Just something to keep in mind.