2004-02-27 - 9:25 p.m.
A TALE OF FEAR AND TERROR
So there I was just sittin' at my house, all alone, watching some Seinfeld reruns as I like to do. My sweetums was out picking up something for dinner. My dog was asleep in his bed. Things were ordinary and calm.
But not for long! Indeed not. For I caught a small movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked off to the right of my TV set. At first I thought maybe my dog was over there and that he'd moved his ear or his tail or something. But he wasn't. He was in his bed, as I've already explained.
But what WAS there you ask? A mouse! A little grey mouse with mischievous intentions written all over his face. It's weird to see a mouse when you don't expect one, because I know perfectly well what a mouse looks like. I'm not some stoopid head who doesn't know what a mouse is! And yet I'm looking right at it and I'm thinking "well surely that cannot be a mouse".
He was still for a few seconds but then he took off along the wall, hung a tight turn, and left the room. The main floor of our place is pretty wide open, so there's not a lot of doors or anything. On the second floor, where the bedrooms are, there's doors everywhere. But downstairs it's mainly open space, so that little mouse has nowhere to hide. Or DOES he?
I got up and followed after him, but I couldn't find hide nor hair of the little rodent. He was gone like a thief in the night! Then my problems quickly began to mount. First I had to wonder if this unexpected visitor was gone for good, and then I wondered if I should tell Charity about what I saw.
Let me talk about my mom for a minute. When I was little, maybe 7 or 8, she saw a mouse and let out the most horrified scream I've ever heard. My dad put down a few traps and the next day the mouse got caught. But it didn't kill him, though. It only trapped one of his legs, and this poor little mouse was dragging the trap around our kitchen floor with his three good legs, trying to get free.
Well, my mom about died. She hysterically called this friend of my dad's, cause my dad was... I don't know where he was. But while we waited for the guy to come over, my mom sat on the back of the couch. I think this bears repeating. Not the cushion of the couch, but the actual back, where your head usually rests. Just in case the mouse managed to free himself and come after us for revenge, she wanted to be as far off the floor as possible.
Then my dad's friend came over, took the trap outside, and... in an act that haunts me to this day, he dropped a big ol' cinder block on it and squashed the mouse flat. Good grief.
But as freaked out as my mom gets, Charity is eleventy billion times worse. So I'm thinking "maybe I won't tell her", but I gotta tell her. Plus, I gotta tell our neighbors in the other half of our house, because maybe the mouse knows of a secret tunnel that connects our place with theirs. And they're all girls over there, so I figure I gotta prepare them. They handled it about how I expected.
As did Charity when I told her. After she breathed into a paper bag for about an hour, I convinced her that it was probably gone. Where could it hide in our place? Nowhere! We'd see it. It must have gone out the same way it came in, however that was. I really have no idea how it would get in.
But she calmed down and everything seemed normal. Then later that night after she'd gone to bed, I was in the kitchen and who scurries across the floor? My old grey friend. He sat there and we were quiet. He's looking at me, I'm looking at him. And I'm thinking that to maybe make up for the awful cinder block incident, I will save this mouse's life and take him outside and hopefully he can go find somewhere else to live.
But before I can formulate a plan, he took off back into the main area of the house. I pursued him but he disappeared yet again. And the whole time my dog is just laying in his bed. What's the deal, man? There's a strange animal in the house. Earn your keep!
So the next morning I went out and got some mouse traps. The OLD SCHOOL ones that snap a bar down, not any of the new fangled things they have. I put some peanut butter on 'em, cause people tell me that the mouses love peanut butter. And I set a few traps around.
They've been set for about a day. Charity has taken to wearing boots to protect her feet, and shorts to prevent anything from running up her pant leg. It's quite a look. Sexy! I usually go barefoot around the house, but I've been wearing shoes just in case it hits the fan. My dog is still doing nothing.
He hasn't turned up yet, but hopefully he will soon. If not, we may have to go stay at our NEW house. I'll talk about that next time.
