Transcript of 2011 Annual Cambridge Mouse Meeting (9/15~9/19)
Meeting time: September 17th (third day)
Location: the Secret Alley of Meeting
Speaker of the day: Albert Moustein
Albert:
Hi, my name is Albert. It’s a great honor for me to be invited to speak at the Cambridge Mouse Meeting. I think it’s good to have regular meetings to share our own life stories. And I’m happy to have an opportunity to share mine.
I’m living in what humans call Baker House at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I see some surprised looks. Yeah, it’s the MIT that you guys know, but please, don’t ask me to invent any device or machine to get rid of cats. Remember, MIT is for humans not us, mice. I know nothing about science or engineering! Don’t be disappointed. I believe most of you haven’t heard about life at MIT, so I will tell you about it.
Okay, first of all, although always being careful is nothing special for us, mice, we, I mean my friends and I, need to be really careful hanging around there. Why? Because the human residents do not know the difference between day and night! I think some of them lack the ability to distinguish it or do not know when they are supposed to be moving around. As you all know, night is our time. After all the horrifying humans go to bed, we start to go out. I used to think that it was an implicit contract between the two species that humans have the daytime and mice have the nighttime, to better the lives of both. However, these thoughtless humans attempt to dominate the nighttime as well! I cannot understand why they are confused about which one is their time and which is ours.
Audience:
What are they doing during our time? Searching for food?
Albert:
Good question. I don’t think they stay up late searching for food. Mostly, I see people gathered together working on something. In Baker House, there are spacious places at the center, at the west end and east end of each floor. Humans call them lounges. I have heard from mice living in other buildings that they have lounges too. Anyway, humans usually gather in the lounge. (Of course, sometimes a human works alone there.) The meetings they have are strange. Some meetings are quiet. Although they are having a meeting, they do not face each other but look at bunches of papers or … Umm… Hey, what do you call it? The rectangular thing with light or sound coming out… You know, the thing people always carry. Right! Computer! Thanks. Then suddenly, the meeting becomes loud when they start to share what they were looking at. They have quite a passionate discussion. Even I can feel their frustration when they scream and collapse over the paper they are sharing. I don’t know what is wrong with the paper, but it must be something very important for humans. When the discussion gets long, they call somebody to join them. Mostly, after they call somebody – they usually call the same guy when having the discussion – the struggle ends quickly. Then they return to the quiet mode or go to their own room with their stuff.
Sometimes the meeting is really noisy from the beginning. They talk, laugh and turn on what they call music (well, as for music, I hear it every day. Boom! Boom! Boom! I think they really love it.) I personally prefer this meeting because they bring food! We need to be really patient while the meeting is going on because the smell is so tempting. It is like waiting until the close of a restaurant. When the gathering ends, there are lots of leftovers on the floor: pizza, chicken wings and snacks. However, we still need to be careful because even after the meeting, humans come to the lounge or pass by.
Audience:
Do they have the food meeting every day?
Albert:
Sadly, not every day. But they have it quite often at different places. If you want, you can go to every meeting. When they have the food meeting, they advertise the meeting to attract other humans, which I cannot understand. If I were them, I would not attract others and keep all the food to myself. Don’t you agree? Anyway, if you have a friend who can read the human language, you can really go to every meeting.
Audience:
It sucks. You cannot have leftovers every day. It is much better to live at restaurants.
Albert:
Oh, no, no. There are kitchens in the basement. Humans in white clothes make food there on a regular schedule. It’s just like living at restaurants. Of course the food is not as good as actual restaurants, but what is good about the basement kitchens is that they do not keep them as clean as the restaurants. There is always so much food there! Hurray! Actually, I myself spend lots of time in the basement. Moreover, it is said that the food has become worse than before since something the “meal plan” appeared. So the humans produce leftover food more, complaining that it sucks. For us, the food is the same. So it is good for us! Yum!
Oh, I almost forgot. Humans have meetings in the basement as well. They are almost the same as the ones in the lounge. The humans have the usual discussion and food meetings like “froyo” parties. Actually, even during the food time, they never leave right after finishing meals; they spend extra time chatting or staring at the computer thing – I envy them since they do not have to hurry after eating to avoid any enemies, don’t you agree?
Sometimes you can see extraordinarily interesting things. A few weeks ago, I saw a bunch of humans shaking their bodies while turning on the music in the basement. Imagine the kitchen full of humans shaking themselves! The kitchen was dark, and lights flashed on and off, on and off and on and off as if I was rapidly blinking my eyes. It was hilarious to watch them. I want them to do it more often.
Ah, also, there is a giant black wooden thing called a “piano” there. Some humans come to the basement to make music with it. That music is quite different from what I usually hear in the building. My friend Wolfgang enjoys listening to it. If you are interested in music, which I cannot understand at all, you should join him.
Audience:
Albert, I have a question. Are there cats?
Albert:
As for Baker House, NO! Aha! I see some brightening eyes. In fact, there are cats in some other buildings. But for some reason, there aren’t any cats in most buildings, which is good. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean that you are perfectly safe. Humans abhor us as we detest them. When they realize that we are around them, they become crazy. I think you all know this well. Oh, you know what? There is my friend Werner. He likes warm places so he dares to go into the rooms of humans. One day, he caught the eye of the resident. Oh, God. She screamed, screamed, screamed and screamed. She threw everything she had at Werner. I think she was trying to get rid of him somehow, but because of her bombarding, our poor Werner could not get out of the room! He indeed wanted to go out!
However, Werner is a lucky guy. He survived and is still alive. Sorry for mentioning this wicked thing, but the humans sometimes install the Evil Trap of Temptation (which is commonly called the Trap as you all know) in their rooms. Oh, how much do I miss my poor friend Niels whose life was taken away by the Satanic Trap! What is more terrible is that the hunters sometimes forget that they installed the Traps and do not remove the corpses until the smell of our rotten friends tell them that they should do so. Awww!!!!
Audience:
Stop talking about disgusting things!
Albert:
Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Ah… Oh, I have another thing to tell you guys. One day, Erwin asked me to go to the food meeting at another building. So I followed him. Then I saw some humans sneaking up the side of one of the MIT buildings. It was really dark and I knew that even the humans confused about day and night usually don’t go to that building during nighttime. Oh, for clarification, buildings for living and buildings for other stuff are divided, guys. Back to my story, I became curious. I guessed that they were going to the secret food storage, which I didn’t want to miss. I left Erwin and followed them. But… What a disappointment! They were just decorating the interior of the building. They climbed up the stairs and attached some huge cloth with letters onto the wall. No food!! Why was I following them? However, the decoration seemed to be so funny for the humans. They giggled and seemed so happy with their achievement. Humans are weird. I told this to the other mice at Baker and they said that humans here often do such stuff.
Audience:
Why do they do it?
Albert:
I don’t know! For fun, maybe? Hmmm… No, it’s MIT, the place for the most intelligent humans in the world. There must be some secret meaning. Maybe it is a secret service to better the whole community. Or maybe it is an announcement boasting of a great discovery for the community… I really cannot guess. By the way, why should we be concerned about this? There was nothing related to food.
Audience:
Albert, I have something to tell you! You are living at MIT. It is not a usual place to live. Listening to your stories, I don’t think you are fully taking the advantage of living there.
Albert:
What do you mean…?
Audience:
I mean that there must be lots of knowledge that is also useful for us, mice. You said you know nothing about science or engineering. Why don’t you take advantage of where you live?
Albert:
Oh, I see. Well, as a matter of fact, I might start taking some classes next week. My friend Isaac thinks like you. By using human knowledge, he wants to find a better way to search for food and avoid our enemies such as cats or the Traps. He doesn’t think the fact that MIT is a school for humans is important. He wants me to steal human knowledge with him… In fact, uh, I actually found out the magical liquid humans drink to boost their knowledge: Red Cow! Huh? Oh, Red Bull… Sorry. Isn’t it the same thing, by the way? Hmm, never mind. There are often leftover Red Bulls at the lounges. So we can drink it and go to the classes and find the way to help our species prosper! As these humans have invaded our nighttime, we might also be able to invade their daytime!
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!
Sang Hyun is a member of the class of 2015 at MIT and is majoring in physics. She was born and grew up in Korea. She enjoys reading books and comics. Science fiction is her favorite genre. She sometimes creates her own SF stories as well. She got inspired to write this essay after her friends complained about how frequently they had seen mice in the dorms – one of her friend actually named a mouse appearing at the lounge “Albert.”