Albert Mousestein
by Andrew smith

I read in the paper where a team of scientists finally succeeded in creating much smarter mice. They did this by identifying and manipulating one of the genes connected with mouse intelligence. The end result was that they were able to give modern civilization a more intelligent mouse. At last!

That was nice of them. And, on behalf of modern civilization, I'd like to stick my tongue out at them right now. I wonder what their next project is? Rattlesnakes with deadlier poison? Bees with two stingers? Longer lasting mosquito bites?

There's just no end of things that could be improved in this world. How about inventing something you could mix in concrete that would allow it to absorb and hold heat from the sun up to a certain temperature? Then you could have roads and sidewalks that would automatically melt snow and ice, without overheating in the summer.

How about inventing that fabled photosynthetic engine, so we could have all the energy we want, pollution free?

Or how about, say, inventing cloth fibers that reconnect themselves when they're torn or frayed, so that your clothes could repair themselves? That would be useful.

But smarter mice? I don't know about you, but having geek mice around does not translate into a great quality-of-life improvement for me. Sure, I guess there will be some slim satisfaction in knowing that the little rodent I just mousetrapped got to finish War and Peace before his life was so tragically cut short, but honestly, I thought the mice we had were smart enough.

I think this is just another utopian pipe dream, fueled by a technology gone wild. I think those scientists spent too many lonely hours locked away in their remote laboratories, with only mice for companions. And I think they began to talk to their mice, and to feel sorry for them. And maybe they thought if they made the mice more intelligent, then maybe they'd have some friends.

I'm sure the scientists meant well by creating smarter mice. I'm sure they thought that giving mice bigger brains would open up new vistas of culture for them, like art, mathematics, and literature. And that one day the world would benefit from the discoveries of great, but very small, scientists like Albert Mousestein and great teeny-weeny writers like Mousetoyevsky.

But they've created a Frankenmouse! Making mice smarter is just going to make them depressed. How much brain wattage does it really take to chew a hole in a bag of dog food? Not much. And so, what we're going to end up with is a bunch of over-qualified, bored rodents who don't find it challenging to be a mouse anymore. And that spells trouble.

It probably won't take the little geniuses too long to discover that they've all got buck teeth and look like little hillbillies. And no amount of brain power will remedy that. So they'll begin to feel self-conscious and they'll develop poor self-esteem.

Everybody knows that poor self-esteem leads to poor life choices. Mouse teen pregnancy rates are bound to rise, though God knows, they're high enough already. Our little rodent rebels will drop out of school in droves and become chronically unemployed. Then they'll start hanging out in little gangs and dying their fur pink and green.

And their parents won't understand. They were perfectly happy chewing holes in dog food bags. And their parents were perfectly happy chewing holes in dog food bags. So they'll send their kids to famous, spendy psychologists to straighten them out. Like Dr. Sigmouse Freud. But nothing will seem to help.

These young, smart mice will start listening to horrible music that expresses the hopelessness they feel inside. Maybe they'll get tiny little tattoos, and wear ear rings, and pierce their bodies in an effort to stand above the crowd. But it will be a useless effort, for no mouse ever stood more than about an inch and a half tall. And so, they'll fall into despair.

Mouse-angst may not be very big, but it's a force to be reckoned with all the same. I can just see these young, disaffected mice getting together in dark basements all across America and deciding that they don't want to live off the crumbs of the rich anymore. I can see them starting a rodent revolution. I can see them rioting, and leaving a mess on the kitchen counter.

The police will get involved, but by then it will be too late. The brilliant little mice with so much promise will have turned to a life of crime. Forget about stealing dog food. These wicked mice will start breaking into the liquor store and the local pharmacy instead. They'll become drug addicts and thieves, and they'll probably write really smart Latin graffiti all over the molding in my living room.

And the worst thing is, to catch these smarter mice, we're going to have to develop smarter cats. My cat is too smart already, and what's worse, he's a smart-aleck. And, of course, if we have smarter cats, we'll have to have smarter dogs. That would be a disaster. Can you imagine if dogs had brains? It would spell the end for civilization as we know it.

So I'm against these smarter mice, and I say we've got to put our foot down now. Send them to boot camp, make them cut their hair; whatever it takes. Because a smart mouse spells trouble.