what do you mean "not even a mouse?"

i was a memorizer as a child. i don't know if it was just a natural ability for recollection or the incessant repetition with which i listened to everything i loved in my younger years. it was probably a combination of the two. i had one christmas album in particular that i loved until it warped. i remember lying on my stomach on the green shag carpet of my bedroom, listening intently and studying the texture pattern on the walls, looking for regularities which, if they existed always eluded me. i would run my fingers over the sharp edges of the "entertainment center" that held my turntable and speakers. at the age of 8, i felt like such a grown-up for having this impressive piece of furniture in my own personal space. i spent hours wiping every speck of dust off of it and arranging and re-arranging the speakers so that they were perfectly centered on the platform extensions specifically designed to hold perfectly centered speakers. perfectly centered. a favorite phrase of mine throughout my life. i loved that stereo stand. it was, of course, purchased in a large cardboard box, and fabricated of particle board dressed in a wood-grain appearance that was apparently one giant sticker. but i did not care. it was mine and it was not a milk crate or a plastic table with removable legs. i would lie there for hours caressing my stereo stand and listening to the soft voice of the narrator: "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..." at this point, the high-pitched whiny squeaky voice of the man-mouse interrupts. it was the kind of voice that for no clearly discernable reason would be universally recognized as the voice of a cartoon mouse. even on a record. there was something just so believable about that voice actor! "what do you mean, not even a mouse?"
soft lady-voice: "well, that is what is says in the poem, 'not even a mouse'."
"well, i am a mouse."
"i can see that!"
"and i was there on that night before it happened!"
"you were there?"
"mm-hmm."
"didn't you fall asleep and wait for Santa?"
"fall asleep!? how could i!? it was so exciting! everybody scurrying around the house."
"would you like to tell me all about it?"
"oh, i don't know, i'm pretty shy..."
"very well, then, i'll continue... twas the night before..."
"no! wait! i'll tell you"
and on it goes. the little mouse tells a fantastic christmas story to a nice soft-spoken lady who, contrary to common misperception, is NOT afraid of the mouse. i don't know how many times i had listened to it before i had memorized it in it's entirety, but at some point i could have recited the entire two-sided record, had the opportunity ever presented itself. i did not know this was weird until one day i was sitting at the dining room table, likely far off in the world i so often enjoyed during those fortunate moments when my brother was not there to intimidate me or punch me in the ribs. i randomly started to recite my christmas record and i don't think i even knew that i was doing this aloud until i was well into the mouse's story and i felt my mother staring at me, perplexed. "what are you saying? is that that christmas record you listen to all the time?" "yes." "do you know all of it?" rather than answering this question i just continued my recital, consciously this time, in order to demonstrate an answer rather than actually provide an answer. i continued again until i started to worry that now my mother was looking at me like she was a bit afraid. it may have been the mimicking of the mouse voices (both the man mouse and the woman mouse) and the lady voice and her young son's voice, puncuated with my re-enactment of the soft narrator lady voice, all distinctive and, i think, fairly accurate. or it could have been the fact that all of these words just kept pouring out of her daughter's mouth. it even could have been the simple reality that my mother is not a memorizer. whatever it was, my mother stared at me like she was afraid to take another step closer to the rambling freak-show. "how do you do that!?" i had no idea what she meant. i didn't DO it, it just happened to me. my mother sat back in her chair, pensively, still glancing cautiously in my direction as if to be sure that she maintains tabs on the location of the freakish thing so as not to be suddenly surprised by it later. then she said. "yeah, you've always been like that." i didn't know what she meant. one does not remember much of "always" when one is 7 or 8. my mother then explained to me that once when i was about 3 or 4, i had performed one of my memorization recitals for her and she had been shocked into the belief that her tiny daughter was an intellectual phenom. (my words, not hers...and incidentally, this may still be true, it just wasn't evidenced on this particular day.) i had books on record as a toddler. casper the friendly ghost and hansel and gretel were my two favorites. i listened to them over and over and over and over again. place the 33 on my little plastic turntable in a briefcase, open the book, listen for the ding and learn the story. those books were very short, so i could listen hundreds of times a day if i wanted to. and i did. the record would read to me and all i had to do was listen for the elevator ding to know when to turn the page. if i was off by a ding or two for any reason (which, by my nature i would not usually be) all i had to do was look at the picture and i would know if it was the right picture for the current dialogue. one day i took my little book out to the kitchen where my mother was likely preparing lunch for us. a peanut butter and honey sandwich for me and a salad with carrots and french dressing for her. i sat at the table and opened my book. i was nearly half-way through my "reading" before my mother was able to observe that i wasn't quite looking at the page while i spoke, but all the words were correct. as my mother recalled the incident i had no independent recollection of it, but we both agreed that i was probably trying to play a trick on her to make her think that i could read. incidentally, i did eventually begin to read, and at a reasonably young age. i think it probably had something to do with my books on record. and later, my impressive stereo stand. when i was about 23, i went to my parent's house for christmas and i was telling my then girlfriend about childhood christmas memories. i began to recite the record again as i looked through the hall closet for the record itself. at which time, my mother re-told both of the above stories as i had expected her to. she always has and i strongly anticipate she always will. this year when i go to spend christmas in the sand with my parents, i think i will begin a recital of the mouse story just to trigger the reading stories one more time. she's so predictable. and i love to hear stories about myself.