What's that noise?

Country 105's Hot Rod Harriet's tale of woe http://www.country105.com/Blogs/MicsOff/BlogEntry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10009001 about a mouse in the house brought back memories of when a mouse got into my house. The first twenty-four hours I went into denial about what the droppings and noises were. I went another day hoping that with two cats, the problem would soon disappear. I'd forgotten that cats tend to like to play with their prey before they kill it. To Jude and Faith, the mouse was just a fun toy.

Big Lug definitely wasn't too helpful about the potential mouse problem. He went off on a rant about my laid back attitude towards housekeeping. When I said I wasn't that bad, he pointedly asked me when was the last time I swept the kitchen floor.

Matters finally came to a head on a Sunday morning. I had gotten up early to make some baking to bring to church. I had made a vow to sweep the kitchen floor more frequently and reached behind the microwave stand to grab the broom. That's when everything sort of went slow motion. I saw the mouse, I heard it's little feet scratching on the floor as it ran for cover behind the fridge and the cats SITTING by the fridge watching me. I guess I was probably fun to watch because I went total chick.

Big Lug's version of what happened is he woke up to a high pitched EEEEEEEEEE coming from the kitchen. He stumbled out of bed to see me standing on a chair. I pointed to the fridge and said Theresamousebehindthefridgegetridoftheeffingthingnow! When he asked me what the Hell was going on, I replied ItoldyouthereisamousebeingthefridgeIhatemicegetridofit. After the second time, it dawned on him the last time he saw me go Total Chick was when a friend's cat had caught a mouse. He told me to calm down and tell him exactly what was going on.

In Big Lug's defense, by no stretch of the imagination am I a girly girl. I am definitely 99 99/100th pure Tomboy. To see his wife who would nonchalantly catch a spider in the house and get rid of it, who preferred denim to lace and only owned three pairs of shoes to turn into a shrieking, up on the chair woman was hard for him wrap his brain around. Unfortunately my big, strong tough guy did me the double cross of expecting me to Tomboy up and help him get rid of the mouse. Even worse, I did know what to do and how to do it.

I gave Big Lug a metal bowl and told him to put it over the mouse if it made a break for it. I shut the cats in our bedroom and our three year old in his bedroom while Big Lug kept an eye on the fridge. Cats and Kidlet out of the way, next step was for Big Lug to pull out the fridge while I stood guard with the bowl. I'll spare you the details of his monologue about when was the last time I swept underneath the fridge. He took the back off the fridge and said "I can see the damn thing's eyes. Are you ready?" He got the mouse out and I was able to quickly put the small metal bowl over top of it. The next step was to slide a piece of card stock between the bowl and the floor to capture the mouse. Unfortunately I didn't make it clear to Big Lug he was the one who was supposed to pick it up. There are times when it's not worth it to argue, a woman has to do what a woman has to do. If you think mice are cute, it's time to stop reading and leave this blog.

The final step was to go to the bathroom and flush the mouse. There was no way I was going to do a catch and release. I wanted the mouse GONE!!!!!!!!!!!! Within 48 hours I threw out $80 worth of food, bought $100 worth of Tupperware to store food in and upgraded my housekeeping standards. We also bought $25 worth of traps in case anymore mice had the same bright idea of coming into our house. The last four years we have been mouse free.