The Saturday Morning Mouse

Last Saturday morning the kids were in the family room watching T.V. It was still kind of dark and so we were a little leery when Pierce told us he saw a mouse run across the floor. Ryan and I were still in bed when we heard Pierce yell, "Oh my gosh there's a huge black spider!" So I groggily and casually told him to get something and kill it. A moment later he yelled, even louder this time, "It's not a spider it's a mouse!!" Ryan and I simultaneouly jumped out of bed and all the kids instantly jumped up on the couch and remained there for some time while Ryan and I tried to figure out where he went. We couldn't find the little bugger so we just kind of let it go until we could go to the store and get some mouse traps. We've never had a mouse in this house so I was surprised to have one. When I went out that day I stopped at Walmart and got 8 sticky traps. Years ago, when we lived in the Farmhouse, we had great success with these things. Heaven knows we had our fair share of mice in that house! We still laugh about it to this day.

Anyway, we set out all the traps throughout the house with a little dab of peanut butter on them. Every day this past week I'd check the traps to see if we caught anything. Nothing. No sight nor sound of a single mouse. We were beginning to think that Pierce was hallucinating or something when he said he saw a mouse. Even last night it came up and we all joked about the Phantom Mouse and how there was no mouse. Sorry Pierce. We were wrong. Dead wrong. It's Saturday once again and our Phantom Mouse has shown his ugly face (he's actually cute but I can't say that or it will be too hard to kill him). Ryan was sitting here in the office studying for his Microbial Physiology test that he's taking this morning, and I was in the kitchen putting dishes away from last night. I was putting a frying pan away in the drawer under our stove when Ryan said, "A mouse just ran in the office!" The mouse had been hiding under the stove and had run into the office when I slammed the drawer shut. I immediately grabbed the broom and dustpan--the broom for Ryan, the dustpan for me, and we began blocking off the office and blocking off where the mouse had run--under the treadmill. We even moved the treadmill to get that little sucker to come out. And he did try a couple times. The first time he came running out on my side so fast that it freaked me out so bad and I screamed really loud and that scared him so he ran back in. Ryan got him once with the broom but between the soft carpet and the soft broom he wasn't able to get a hard enough whack. The next time he came out I smacked him with the dustpan. He was so bloody fast that I too could not get a good enough whack. After that he's been hiding in the treadmill. He won't come out. I like to think I whacked him hard enough on the head but I don't know. We turned on the treadmill to see if that would make him come out but no such luck.

Well, Ryan had to leave to take his test and we couldn't sit here forever just waiting for our furry friend to come out, so we got a bunch of the sticky traps and put them around the treadmill and along the walls where he might try to run. The house is quiet now. The kids are working at Grandma's and Ryan is up at school taking his test. I keep thinking I hear the mouse but don't know if it's my imagination or not. I keep peering over my shoulder at the treadmill just to see if we caught anything. It's a little freaky thinking that he has been living in our house all week long. Where has he been hiding? What has he been munching on? He's an awfully good hider for none of us to see him for a whole week. I can't live knowing that there is a mouse somewhere in the house. He must go today. Mice really are nasty, even if they are a little cute. Sorry guy. I think today is your final day. Squeak your final squeaks. You don't mess with the Adams Family.