The Mouse

There's a mouse in my house. And he ain't Mickey Mouse.

He's about 3-4 inches long, grey and very, very fast. He is also a magician, as he's on my counter tops in the kitchen.

I'm afraid of mice. I scream like a little girl and panic when I see them. Years ago, my first experience with a mouse resulted in my grabbing the zoo (we seriously have a million animals that are allowed to live here--dogs, cats, the occasional ant that finds its way inside the house--I won't even kill a spider, but there's just no room for a mouse) and racing upstairs, closing and locking the bedroom door and demanding that Hubby return home from work RIGHT NOW to take care of the problem. The second mouse encounter was as I was walking through the house and turning back to where I'd been and I saw the mouse (dead of course) in the middle of the path I'd just walked. Again, I called Hubby and demanded that he return home from work RIGHT NOW to retrieve the body--I was trapped in the kitchen until Hubby came to get the body...who's going to cross a dead body knowingly?

I have gotten better. I praise God that the cats don't eat the mice, but rather play with them until the mice stop playing and then leave them where they stopped. However, I still cannot do removal myself.

So this Sunday, I was putting dishes in the dishwasher. I have been aware that we have a mouse hole (they seriously ate a hole in my wall) for a while. It's on the floor behind the water heater that has a hole to the ground, because we live in a government built hovel that has no insulation or really foundation--it was temporary housing that's lasted about 40 years longer than was intended. Anyway, Hubby was supposed to fix the hole, but since he works some weekends and I work every...well, day, we haven't made the trip to the only home store chain I'm allowed in (allowed by Hubby to go in...there was an unfortunate incident several years ago at a home store chain that resulted in my sitting on the floor in hysterics and tears, and nobody wants that incident relived, so we just don't return for fear of flashbacks--another story for another time) and gotten foam or something to take care of the hole.

I should break here and explain that I don't want to kill the mice. The first encounter with the mouse years ago where Hubby had to race home was because I was trying to save the mouse's life. I swear it looked up at me with its beady little eyes and begged me for mercy as Tom Cat swatted at it...I seriously heard a voice reminding me that this horrid little creature that had me on a couch screaming my head off was also God's creature. That mouse got away because after I dragged the then 2 dogs and 2 cats upstairs, Hubby couldn't find it. Because of that first mouse, I will not set a trap. (Well, that and because then I'd still have the removal issue.) I don't think the glue traps are at all humane (and then I'd still have the removal issue and sticky paws on 2 cats to boot) and I've heard that the mice actually cry out when they are stuck to the glue trap. I don't want one of the traps that has poison in it that the mice then take back to their nests (then I just have dead mice in the walls and possibly dead cats from following the mice into the poison source). I just want them to move to another house. In fact, I'd like to plant them in my neighbor's house that's attached but down two units from my house...but that's again, another story for another time.

So this Sunday I'm loading the dishwasher when this grey blur tears out in front of me ON THE COUNTER TOP and takes off for the other end of the kitchen. I'm hyperventilating, trying to escape the kitchen, but the government built hovel we live in is a two butt kitchen, and Hubby is behind me with the fridge door open so there's no exit. I begin to climb onto the washer (who else but the government would put a washer in a kitchen?), when I realize that if the mouse is ON THE COUNTER TOP, it's quite likely he could make the short leap onto the washer. I was stuck, and I don't know the last time so many prayers have been sent in such a short compact time. Fortunately for the mouse, Hubby is so distracted by me that the mouse escapes behind the stove and is not caught for the Mouse Relocation Program.

Since Sunday, I have been afraid of the kitchen. I know he's there. I know he's waiting for me. I believe that every creak, every clatter, every little sound is him, plotting his revenge. I don't know how he's getting on the counter, but I believe that he's teaching all of his brothers and sisters how to get up there and no matter how much scrubbing and bleaching I do, he will have been there, laughing at me. He may be only 3-4 inches, and I may be 66 inches; he may weigh under one pound, and I may weigh--well, let's not go there--but he has my rear end kicked.

And somehow I'm supposed to use the kitchen to make meals, bake for a bake sale and get my medication that's stored in a cabinet there. Maybe I'll try to pretend that I live in Mickey's Playhouse. Maybe I'll write Mickey for some ideas. After all, they probably are related somehow.