The Adventures of Mice and Women

Busy weekend!!!

Before I get to the riveting tale of my mice adventures, I have to celebrate - last night I wrote SIX new pages - single spaced - on my new laptop.

SIX PAGES!!!!

Woooo-eeeeeee!!!!

I had an awesome time. Felt so good to sit there and write on the couch with the Christmas carols playing (hubby took the kids to a friend's house to let me write) and my dog lying at my feet. I didn't want to stop writing when bedtime rolled around, so I took the laptop to bed with me and wrote for another hour.

My other stepson flew in (on a plane, of course) from Kentucky on Saturday night. He and his brother and my daughter happily played together into the wee hours of the morning. He'll be here through the 31st.

Yesterday afternoon, my mother and I went to The Nutcracker ballet. Although I am not a ballet fan, I did enjoy the beautiful costumes and scenery and the music. Mom and I went and had supper after that - it was great to spend time together.

On to the mice adventures...

Saturday morning, my stepson ran upstairs. "Mom!" he yelled. "There's a mouse in a box in my room!"

I trudged (somewhat unwillingly) downstairs to his room, grabbed a broom, and kicked the box. Sure enough, a little mouse scurried inside.

"Okay," I said. "Here is what we're going to do. Pick up the box and take it outside. I'll keep guard with the broom."

My brilliant plan to take the box outside, dump the contents, and let the puppies do what they will with the mouse, did not come to be. Instead, as my stepson climbed the stairs, the mouse decided to make his grand entrance. He shot through stepson's fingers and stepson dropped the box on the stairs with a loud crash.

I was screaming, he was yelling and jumping up and down, and I was frantically trying to stop the little grey creature from going up my pant leg or worse, escaping! The little guy hopped up and down the stairs, avoiding my broom, and probably freaking out over my screams and my stepson's frantic yells!

I finally cornered him and stepson and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. What a pair we were! "Okay," I said, "go get your shoes on and find the dustpan. We're going to smack him with it and then put him outside."

When stepson came back with the dustpan, I moved my broom and the little mouse shot out like a bullet. More screaming and yelling ensued. Stepson finally cornered him on the stairs and kicked the dustpan. He checked to see if the mouse was dead and was surprised when it wasn't. He kicked the dustpan again. This happened about three times.

Until...

He pulled the dustpan away and groaned.

"I thought it was still alive because it had its eyes open!" he said. But the poor kid didn't realize that he'd smashed the mouse into oblivion. I'm not kidding, either - it looked like the poor thing had exploded.

Yes. You can groan in disgust now.

Last night, I went into the kitchen, turned the light on, and saw a mouse scurry across my kitchen counter and back behind my stove. Grrrrrr....I wasn't happy. Especially since I had two traps set up on the OTHER side of the stove.

Me, being the genius that I am, (LOL!), moved the glue trap to the other side of the stove. And wallah! This morning, the wee beastie was caught on the trap. Unfortunately, he was still alive. That made me feel bad.

"Why can't you just stay out of my house?" I wailed. "Then I wouldn't have to kill you!"

Hubby and I went and tried to find more holes. We insulated every corner of our unfinished basement and it's now a lot warmer. I hope we also dissuaded any more mice from coming inside.

We let our cat inside over the weekend, despite my allergy to her, and she earned her keep by catching three mice.

Now add that up - the exploding mouse, the glue trap mouse, and three caught by the cat.

That's five.

Now we can all say a collective EWWWWWWWWW.

I'm about ready to call the exterminator.

Unfortunately, the cat also had a grand time knocking down Christmas decorations. I'm not at all happy about that. But hey, she caught three mice. She's okay in my book. ;-)