Mice, along with everything else in life, need reboots these days

I have been using a trusty wireless mouse for about 3 months now. (I didn't want a wireless mouse, but here in Macau, I didn't know what was going on, so I walked into an expensive hardware store—the only hardware store I knew—and they only had wireless mice. Well I thought, it may be twice the price but even twice the price isn't expensive, and I need a mouse...)

It suddenly stopped working while I was using it.

• The light under the mouse was on, so the mouse thought it was working.
• The touch pad built into the laptop worked, so Windows was still working and accepting pointer-movement instructions.
• I took out the USB device, which communicates with the mouse, and put it back in. "Detecting new hardware" etc. But it didn't start working again.
• I plugged the USB device into a new port. Even more "Detecting new hardware" etc. But it still didn't start working again.

Then I took the batteries out of the mouse (which has no on/off switch), then put them back in again. Then it started working again.

My mouse had crashed, and needed a reboot.