Mickey MICE!

Enjoy my live-tweet thread, about how some deer mice totally derailed the first night of our family vacation.

How it All Went Down

For many years, I have been going to Jasper every Summer with the fam. This particular year was different, though, because we quickly came to realize that we were also vacationing with a family of deer mice! Seeing one zoom by with a hotdog in its mouth set the bizarre, creepy tone for the night. Normally we’re filled with nothing but peacefulness when we’re here, likely due to the freshest of air, the crystal clear lakes, the gigantic mountains that make you feel like not just an ant, but an ant in heaven. And the cabins!!! They’re so wonderfully warm and cozy. Normally I could rave for hours about how cabins in Jasper are my favourite place to be in the whole world… until this night happened.

After seeing the deer mouse with the raw weenie in it’s mouth dart into a hole underneath our cabin, I had a strong hunch that our night was going to get weirder, and it did. From mice treating the living room like a 100-meter dash, to my dad standing on guard in his underwear with a hotdog roaster in-hand, to getting one last Jack-in-the-box (more like rodent-in-the-box) type scare – this trip definitely wasn’t short of surprises. Even though we lost a night of our vacation to stress and paranoia (and the whole experience made me develop a newfound fear of mice, lol), we gained a strange and hilarious story that my family and I will always get a major chuckle from whenever we look back on it.

Writing Style

I channeled my inner Paris Zarcilla to bring a sense of immediacy and comedic hysteria to the tweets. I was also influenced by Tom Taylor, to convey a horrific scenario in a funny way, and include some unexpected, edge-of-your-seat thrills in a way that reads like a suspenseful chapter book. I used the occasional ALL-CAPS word throughout my tweet thread as a vehicle to emphasize emotion. I also wrote in an un-serious, witty way to emphasize the organic, improvisational nature of Twitter threads, and aimed to convey the same vibe of rapid thought bursts.

I also incorporated photos, memes, and gifs to enhance the level of humour in the story, in hopes to make it more digestible and relatable for readers.

Mighty, Micro, Mousy Moments

Gary Vaynerchuk notes the importance of story-telling in “micro moments” and “finding ways to tell a story that grabs your attention the moment you take out your phone and scroll through various social platforms.” He explains “that’s the game we’re playing” and “that’s what you have to focus your energy on.” By keeping that in mind, I felt that I was able to create a more enjoyable, succinct, unique, cliff-hanger story. By writing in quick snippets I was able to highlight real, fast human reactions and emotions. Creating this short snippet-style story through Twitter has shown me that micro moments can still be mighty. And I can certainly say the same thing about mice now, too – even something so small can make a big statement.