We Have a Mouse!

Somehow, this is more important to me than to the dog, puppy, bird or cat. Yes, cat! She is apparently clueless about her role in life. The puppy heard me howl and thought she'd done something wrong. The dog knows that noise, after nine years with me, but he usually equates it with Mom finding a spider. He did at least come to the door to find out what I'd found this time. Of course, by then, the mouse had scurried across the back of the counter, across the stove and through the opening in the metal dish-thingie that sits beneath the burners.

The bird only notices mice when they try and sneak through the bars of his cage to steal his food. He stalks closer, raps his beak against the perch a few times, then opens his beak threateningly. Apparently, mice don't speak bird, they continue to steal his food.

Until today, I thought I had plugged all the mouse doors into this house. I expected to find some when I moved in here; I have a field to the west and woods to the south. The little packets of poison in the kitchen cupboard were another clue. Yet, I hadn't run into any mice before now.

I know the fastest way to fix things is with traps, but they don't work for me. My first home in Missouri was a beautiful rock house in the country surrounded by acres and acres of grass and cattle. And mice. So, I bought those little wooden traps and baited them with peanut butter.

They worked beautifully! But then I had to deal with disposing of them. There was no way I was going to get close enough to a dead mouse to open the trap and dump it, so the whole trap had to go. Picking up the trap also meant getting close to the mouse. I finally figured out how to manipulate a broom to sweep a trap out of the oddest spots, such as the shelf in the closet. My broom often had traces of peanut butter when I wanted to sweep the floor.

Throwing away those little wooden traps seemed wasteful, so I tried those sticky traps. Big mistake!

I sat in front of the TV one morning and heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-taptaptap!

I tiptoed in and turned on a light, trusty big dog right behind me.

Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap!

On top of the stove, a poor mouse had one back leg stuck to the trap and was trying to shake it off! He couldn't run away, and my attempts to get closer only brought on a wilder tap dance. I opened the back door, grabbed my broom and moved in.

Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap!
I had to get past the stove to get the right angle to swat the mouse and trap across the room and out the door. I prayed he wouldn't get dislodged from the trap and soar off into the bedroom. Swing one tossed him on the floor. Swing two caught the broom bristles on the trap. Swing three sent trap and mouse flying out the back door.

I finally got the courage some time later to look outside and see what became of the mouse. I am still not sure. When I looked, the old dog was walking around the yard trying to shake the sticky trap off her front paw.

Tap-tap-tap-! Tap-tap-tap!