As a young man growing up in the Piedmont of North Carolina, even when there was nothing to do there was something to do. Mostly I played baseball, Until recently I considered playing baseball better than having sex, that is until my wife reminded me that I wasn't a young man anymore and I had better be satisfied with any physical activity I could do and concentrate on what I need to do, before she took a 2x4 and cleaned house. Anyway, I had this box, it was about 3 or 4 feet long and about 14 inches square. I had traded some kid something for it, probably my catchers mitt I looked for for 10 years, anyhoo, this box had some hardware cloth at one end and in the middle was this little house looking thing and you could see a fox tail sticking out from the hole at the back end of it. 'Beware- Mongoose', was painted on the side. If any of you folks came from the country and remember what a rabbit box was, that would be close to how this looked and was constructed. At the front of this box was a little door and should someone look through this front end at an angle they could just make out something inside. I would take this box with me in my car and if I was bored I'd stop at one of the many softball fields in our hometown and set this box on my back seat. I was proud of my '66 Caprice with the SuperSport package and it generally would draw a comment and although it wasn't very souped up it was in great shape. Sometimes young kids coming or leaving the field on their bicycles would stop and we would converse and I'd wait for one to look inside the car to check out the interior. Then it would invariably come, "Whats That?" one would ask. Then I'd go into a little spiel about how my cousin who had been in the Air Force had brought me back this little mongoose from some remote pacific island. Shoot, most of the time I would make up an island just so's nobody could say that there was no mongoose on that island. I'd reach in and grab the box and very gently set the box on the nearest grassy area just like I was trying very hard not to disturb this very sensitive and disagreeable animal. I'd keep a little bag of soft dog treats in my glovebox and pretend it was feeding time for my pet and would ask for volunteers. Most of the time I had no one that was that brave enough and by this time generally had drawn quite a good crowd, kids and adults alike. There would be the usual prodding and daring between the kids, each one trying to shame someone else into being the scapegoat.That was ok though, I knew what was coming and I would say " Ok, no problem. I feed him all the time anyway." Very Carefully I would open the door of this cage and all of a sudden this foxtail would shoot out from the box past me and towards the crowd. There would be a instantaneous crescendo of screams and curses, people running and falling over their own feet and whatever else may have gotten in their way. Once at a softball park there was this one kid who threw his bike on the ground and took off running and his friends had a better laugh when they found out he ran home and left his bike there. God, I miss that box.