Guest Author - Sharon Schmidt

Imagine opening up an ATM machine and finding a mouse inside. What would your reaction be? That’s what happened to a gas station employee in Oregon recently. The ATM machine in question was working fine and little did anyone know what was going on inside.
The employee began her shift by opening up the ATM machine inside the store and there to her surprise staring back at her was a mouse. The employee claims she was shocked. She reacted by screaming and slamming the door shut.
Once the customers left the store, the employee opened the ATM machine carefully to discover the mouse had taken up residence and used twenty dollar bills to build a nest. The mouse had chewed up two twenty dollar bills completely and used fourteen others to line the nest. None of the damaged bills were dispensed to customers. The bank replaced the money that was not completely damaged but the two shredded twenty dollar bills were a loss.
The mouse was unharmed. It was evicted from its residence. The employees took the mouse outside in back of the store and set it free to find another home. The ATM machine worked perfectly and no one was the wiser until the story got out.
Employees admit they are stumped as to how the mouse got inside the machine to begin with and have no idea how long the mouse was there. It is a mystery that seems to stump everyone who hears the story. I myself cannot figure out how a mouse got into an ATM machine or what possessed him for that matter to go into the store and climb into the ATM and build a nest. It’s something you would expect to see in a cartoon on television or in a child’s story book.
I found the story quite interesting and could not imagine what my reaction would have been had I been the employee who discovered the mouse that day. To me the mouse was living the American dream without a thought to the economy. He was sleeping on a bed of money without a care in the world.
I do commend the employee for staying calm and alerting the proper people to evict the mouse. I also commend the gas station for doing the humane thing by not letting any harm come to the mouse and setting the mouse free to find another home.
I hope wherever the mouse took up its new residence it is as comfortable as it was in that ATM machine. According to the employees at the gas station, the mouse had built one expensive nest. I just hope the mouse found its way to safety and in its quest to find another home, found one as luxurious as it had become accustomed to. The ATM machine is working fine and everything at the gas station is back to normal but the story will be one that will be talked about and spread over the internet for some time to come.