The simple, yet revealing story of a mouse on welfare in the workplace

In the newsroom where I work, there is a mouse, and he is a freeloader, a non-working bum of a mouse addicted to the entitlements of cookies, taco chips, granola bars, candy and all the other wonderful treats to be found in the desk drawers of hardworking, taxpaying reporters.

He raids us at night, chewing his way through the plastic wrap that protects our convenience store brownies, feasting while the reporters are at home, asleep, dreaming fitfully of the next mortgage payment.

And he leaves behind small, black mouse turds. It’s not enough for him to eat food that belongs to working people,...