Mickey Mouse is tired of his role in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse after many years of playing the same character. He wants more alone time with Minnie but their home is constantly filled with visitors and producers. Minnie is also tired of the mess the producers leave behind and wants a simpler life without the pressures of their celebrity, but Mickey knows that as house mice they would not live very long due to the dangers they would face. They argue about whether to continue with their roles or quit and live a more normal life.

1. Ebony Hunter<br />Inside the Clubhouse<br />Mickey Mouse flopped down into his red armchair with half a bottle of Bacardi. It was the end of another day of shooting Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and he was irritated. Sure the show claimed that the big red shoe was a clubhouse, but in reality, this was his home. Though he loved his friends, he was tired of having Donald, Daisy, and Goofy over six days a week. He wanted a little alone time with Minnie, and a day where he could sleep in and not worry about solving some stupid problem that he already knew the answer to. <br />Mousekatools! What a joke!<br />He was eighty-three years old and was still being treated like some black and white character on The Steamboat. To the world he was born on November 18, 1928, but his friends knew that he was actually born a year before that. One night, while Walt Disney was drawing, Mickey shuffled right up to him and begged for a job. Ever since then he had been wearing uncomfortable red shorts and oversized yellow shoes for the whole world to see. <br />Minnie came inside from saying goodbye to the others, marched right past him, and went into the bedroom. He took off his shoes, wiggled his bruised toes, sipped some warm liquor, got up, and followed behind her. She had taken off her pink bow and was cleaning the dresser with Pledge for dust and allergies.<br />“Those producers always leave a mess everywhere they go!” She complained.<br />“Minnie, it’s okay.”<br />“No it isn’t! It’s not like mousekatools are real! I can’t say ‘oh toodles’ and have my room magically cleaned.”<br />“You know mousekatools don’t work like that.”<br />“You’re really correcting me Mickey?” <br />“You would have twice as much to do if we had kids.” Minnie continued cleaning and pretended like Mickey wasn’t there as he sat down on the bed she had just made. Mickey took a swig from his Bacardi and tiredly rubbed his eyes. Even through the pledge he could smell the sweat of the producers who had used their bedroom like a break room. Candy bar wrappers were all over the floor and empty Papa Johns boxes radiated a pungent smell of garlic sauce.<br />“I know you’re tired of all the work Minnie but we can’t just quit.”<br />“Why not?” Mickey didn’t answer as Minnie set down the pledge, picked up a blue wastebasket with manicured nails, and began throwing away half eaten Snickers. He knew Minnie wouldn’t mind being a house mouse. She wouldn’t mind scurrying for bits of crumb and cheese as long as they could cuddle together at the end of the night. However, Mickey knew first hand that being a house mouse was much too dangerous. It was like being an untrained seventeen-year-old boy in the middle of a world war battlefield. He didn’t want that for Minnie. <br /> “If we were house mice you know we would have died many years ago. House mice only live two years, five at the most.”<br />“It would have been better than this!” Minnie retorted. “We’re living on some special diet that makes our skin glow, our voices squeak, and we’ve lived longer than our entire family. We can’t even have children!”<br />“What did you expect?” Mickey asked before taking another drink from his Bacardi. “We could have had hundreds of children and we would have died in someone’s trap.” They glared at each other before Minnie set down the wastebasket and crossed her arms over her flat stomach.<br />“I don’t even know you anymore Mickey. After the lights go out and everyone is gone you’re nothing but a blurry-eyed stranger. You’re too tired to go out, too tired to talk, too tired to do anything but make love to your bottle of rum.” <br />Mickey slowly stood, pointedly took a drink, and left the bedroom without saying a word. He dragged himself from the bedroom and past an unsociable Pluto, who had to be bribed everyday with treats to get him out of his doghouse. Mickey continued outside and breathed in the air that was heavy with the medicine that would prolong their life for up to three hundred years. He gulped down a third of his remaining Bacardi and kicked up some dirt from their neatly trimmed yard. Mickey was tired of singing about mail and counting to six. He was tired of reminding little kids that the fourth mousekatool was a mystery. He wanted respect from his employers and his wife. Didn’t Minnie know he did this all for her?<br />