I’m pretty used to this job now. What once seemed a very strange lifestyle, hopping on planes every week or so, visiting the Miss Mooses, and the Fish and Cheese Suppliers, flying over to Germany to visit Mouse Head Office, working from wherever I can get my Mouse sized laptop to work, is now routine. I even have a list of all the things I need to pack when I go away. It looks like this:-
MOUSE'S LIST
Laptop
Phone
Plastic see through bag with toothpaste, hand gel and Mouse moisturiser
Fur brush
Toothbrush
Whiskers Brush
Paw polish
Pyjamas (of course)
Book on Cheese
Cheese
Passport
I have been doing this for a while now and it is all rather routine. However, there was something different this morning. The first clue was when I approached the Security Desk. People. Lots of people. Everywhere.
Last week when I travelled to Germany for the Mouse Team Meeting, I travelled with the boss. Not my boss, Edie, but the very top boss of all the bosses. The Big Cheese. Because I was with The Big Cheese we were ushered with a smile down the ‘Express Lane’ - the part of security where ordinary people are not allowed, there are seldom any queues, and the only items that go through the scanner are important and battered looking briefcases, laptops and executive style long black coats.
Today there were children. Hundreds of them. All with pink or khaki tiny rucksacks, embellished with dangling ponies, or Buzz Lightyears. On was such rucksack hung a small white Mouse, wearing a ballerina costume. I caught her eye and the communication went unspoken between us. She envied me my ‘proper’ job. I envied her that her only job was to accompany her small boss at all times. However, when I saw her shoved unceremoniously into the scanning machine with the bag, I felt my envy change into something like relief. On with business.
The problem with people who do not travel as regularly as I do, is that they don’t really know how to do it. A large lady got into quite an argument with the Security man about her bag of hair oil which she said HAD to go with her. The bag was of indeterminate size and not labelled ‘below 100 ml’ and she and the Security man had quite a discussion about it.
A family in front of me did not realise that they had to remove their various boots, belts, watches and coats - some 16 items in all, and I had to wait patiently whilst all this went on. Actually I did not wait very patiently. I was hopping about from paw to paw, muttering under my whiskers for them to hurry up.
So, this trip? It’s back to Malmo again. I have a meeting with the Miss Mooses regarding their Fish and Cheese requirements for the next three months. I love visiting the Miss Mooses now. They understand that they have to ask for their Fish and Cheese in plenty of time, and that they can’t just buy it from the market but only from the Fish and Cheese Suppliers that Mouse Head Office signed the deal with, and in return I use whatever biscuit routes I can find to get the Fish and Cheese more quickly for them. Things are improving. There are still some of them who try to go and buy it at the market, and then wonder why they’re not allowed to sell it on at their farm shops, but generally, we are getting somewhere.
The trip to Germany last week was interesting too. I went to a presentation in a German University, on renewable fish and cheese production. It was very interesting. There was a lot of talk about AC/DC but nobody mentioned ‘Highway to Hell’ or even ‘Back in Black’. I’m not sure why. The presentation, which lasted for some 72 slides, was then followed by a lecture in Fish and Cheese support. In German. There are not many limits to my Mouse skills but I must brush up on my Swedish and German, although I did learn that in German, Mausie means sweetie, sweetheart, darling. Of course.
Tomorrow I fly back home to my boss, Edie. She wants to come here to Sweden with me in the Summer. In my holidays. I don’t mind. It will be nice to show her round, and we can be the tourists for once. I won’t tell her about packing her fluids in a clear plastic bag, or wearing belts and boots. I’ll take some fur oil in a clear plastic bag of indeterminate size, and we’ll have a giggle holding up all the foot stamping, muttering, briefcase carrying work people.
Hej dö. Guten Abend, A bientôt.
As always, yours,
Mouse. x
