MY MOUSE

I was going to set up a rant on facebook when I remembered I have this perfectly good blog I haven't written on in months. Then again, I'm sure I'll post it on facebook when I'm done writing, but you don't have to read it; it's my catharsis. after all.

There's a mouse in my kitchen who's been controlling my life for the better part of a week now. Wait--I've been through enough psychotherapy and 12-stepping to know better; I've been allowing this mouse to control my life. It all started with seeing what I thought was a caraway seed in my silverware drawer. Eeeeuuuw, you're saying; and you'd be right. So I get a damp paper towel and get the "caraway seed" out of the silverware drawer and go about my business. The next day there are more seeds in the drawer and I think, "Wait a minute; I don't buy anything covered with caraway seeds and I don't use them in recipes. What the hell is this?" Then a memory slips back into my head. "Oh, yeah. About ten years ago. We had a mouse in here. We had a mouse and we had to get that no-kill trap and Ron put the little pest outside and it came right back in the next day." Now, we had cats at the time, but we always kept a door on our kitchen because we'd had a lovely little cat named Betty who, for some odd reason loved to urinate on kitchen counters. No kidding. It was like some strange fetish with her. We did the craziest things to keep her off the counters (I know; I hear ya.), but finally we just made sure we kept a door installed.

So after finding a crap-load of caraway seeds I say to Ron, "I think we've got a mouse." He says, "Yeah, I've seen him. He's a cute little chap." A cute little chap! So I say, "What are you gonna do about it?" He says, "Well, right now I'm going to take my nap." Aaaarrggg. So I set off for the hardware store because I can't find our humane catch-and-release mouse trap which has since been buried under ten years of basement bull . . .crap. The hardware store has an entire wall covered in products intended to viciously destroy absolutely anything and everything you don't want in your home, with the exception of a tiny corner of the wall devoted to the live-catch traps. They come in several sizes and this particular store usually carries the sizes for mice, rats and up to small fox sized animals. When I got to the store the only size they had was for rats, and in my desperation I bought it, completely forgetting how small mice are, not to mention how clever.

I get home just in time for Ron to be getting up from his nap and for our dogs to be taking his side in all arguments. Mind you, I'm already irritated because this rodent is taking me away from my valuable facebook time, not to mention all my other little projects; the rat poison on the shelves at the hardware had looked awfully inviting. I asked Ron if he wasn't going to help me set up this trap but he said the little dear wouldn't be out until night-time; I insisted on setting it up anyway. When I got it out of the box I could see I may have made a mistake in getting the rat sized trap but was going to give it a shot. I figured if I put some cheese into a little mesh bag attached to the trigger mechanism the little nut would have such a hard time getting it out of the bag that surely the doors would spring shut and trap his little ass. That being done I put the trap into the cupboard I'd cleaned of all other food products. I should probably thank the little monster for making me clean places I hadn't cleaned in years, but . . . I refuse.

The next morning, after much paranoia about going into my own kitchen (hey, I can't help it; it's like not knowing when a very large, hairy, fast-moving bug might suddenly run across your feet, or not knowing if you might pull open a drawer and find a small animal staring up at you. Please!) I pulled the trap out of the cupboard, already seeing that the doors weren't sprung, and I'll be damned if the little bugger hadn't gotten the cheese out of the little bag without tripping that trigger! So yesterday the rat trap went back to the hardware and I was able to find a small maze type device that is now sitting in my cupboard. I don't know yet if the little bully has been caught. As of 4:30 a.m. when the other two animals who control my life got me out of bed the trap was empty, and I said to Ron, "I CAN'T STAND IT THAT SOMETHING THAT SMALL IS CONTROLLING MY LIFE!" Sometimes I think I should live my life wearing a haz-mat suit.

Intended for entertainment purposes only. The management already knows what you're thinking.