Lest you think the mice in the "Mouse Game" lead a tough life, the game's workers have a disclaimer posted.
In the game, which is near the Exposition Center, a mouse is placed on a roulette-style board. He pauses for a moment, then runs into one of the multicolored holes. Players have placed 50-cent bets on individual colors. If Mr. Mouse picks your color hole, you win a stuffed animal.
The sign notes that individual mice are rotated out on an hourly basis. It also says that the mice are fed a strict, healthy diet of "commercially produced grain and distilled water."
We just hope they also are kept safe from the exhibit right across the way — the 20-foot-long, 300-pound "live snake"!
Thad Ogburn is The N&O's Metro Editor, overseeing most local news reporting. His previous jobs have included editor of North Raleigh News and Features Editor, during which he learned that comics attract more reader response than just about anything else we do. His guilty pleasure is reality TV, which he finds not very real at all. That's assuming, of course, there is room on his DVR amid his daughter's "iCarly" episodes and his wife's daily installments of "One Life To Live."
