According to the Washington Post, some of the tennis professionals who have been quarantined in hotel rooms in Melbourne, Australia — awaiting next month’s Australian Open tennis tournament — have been feeding the mice who share their hotel rooms.
Not all of the players have been feeding the mice, mind you. Some players have actually complained about having to share their rooms.
Yulia Putintseva, the world’s 28th ranked player, objected to finding a mouse in her room and was subsequently relocated into another room. She quickly learned that there’s never just one mouse, and they’re not in just one particular room.
“It’s actually a lot of them!” she tweeted, sharing video proof of her tiny roommates.
Ms. Putintseva is among the 72 players who have been quarantined, “unable to leave their rooms in Melbourne even to practice or get meals ahead of the February 8 tournament, the first Grand Slam of the year,” wrote reporter Cindy Boren in this week’s Washington Post article.
The group entered quarantine over the weekend after arriving on three flights from Qatar, the site of qualifying tournaments. Several passengers tested positive upon arrival, and that triggered the quarantine requirement. Apparently, 10 people who flew to Melbourne tested positive for the coronavirus, including two players and a support person. As a result, everyone arriving for the tournament must isolate for two weeks.
From the Washington Post article:
Lisa Neville, Victoria’s emergency services director, urged the hotel guests to “minimize interaction” with the rodents.
“As I understand, there may have been some feeding going on,” she said.
Well, yes. You can’t really expect a tennis professional — who has been guaranteed $100,000 just for playing in the Australian Open, no matter if they win or lose — to be cooped up in a Melbourne hotel for two weeks without feeding the mice sharing their room.
These are highly trained athletes we’re talking about, who’ve found themselves in a frustrating situation. They cannot leave their rooms, to practice or to get food. They have to make their own beds, and they have to entertain themselves, for two weeks.
What else is a tennis professional going to do, in this state of frustration, with your leftover breakfast croissants? You’re going to practice hitting them against the wall, which will quite naturally leave crumbs scattered around your room.
We can easily imagine the mouse conversations taking place behind the hotel room baseboards.
“On, my goodness. If I eat another breakfast croissant, I think I’m going to burst.”
“This week has been so amazing. Too bad the Australian Open only happens once a year.”
“Yeah, the hotel hasn’t exactly been overflowing since this coronavirus thing got started. I was starting to wonder how many of us were going to even make it to January.”
“I heard the humans were having the same kind of worries… about who was going to make it to January.”
“Is that a fact? They seem so… so much in control… to be worried about that kind of thing.”
“The harder they come, the harder they fall, I always say.”
“Yeah. But according to the newspaper I was ripping up to pad my nest, there’s something new, called a ‘vaccine’. that humans are getting excited about.”
“Is it something we can eat?”
“No, it sounds more like something the humans inject into their arms with a needle.”
“Humans. They’re so weird.”
“But they sure make tasty croissants.”
“Yeah. Too tasty. I think I’m going to burst.”
“You already told us that.”
“I know.”
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.