The mouse

Toys are made to look like them.

There are darling illustrated storybooks about them.

I bought the children's book, "The Tale of Fancy Nancy" years ago just because I thought this little mouse was so cute covering her boo boo with a cabbage leaf (a nut had fallen on her nose).

But then a real mouse moved into my house.

I had been hearing a racket in the kitchen at night for about a week and thought it was just Violet. But one night I had had enough and when I got up to see what the heck she was doing, discovered that she was fast asleep right next to me. Hmmm. Odd.

I couldn't see anything in the kitchen so all that noise must be coming from...a mouse! This was a first. I've never had mice in the house before because up to now, I've had a working mouse-catcher named Violet. But Violet's getting old.....so I guess she retired and forgot to tell me.

I bought a livetrap, set it, went to bed, and fifteen minutes later...the bold little thing had been caught.

(This photo was taken in the morning after the mouse spent the entire night trying to chew his way out of the trap.)

And now it was time to find a new home for that mouse fast because that hole in the plastic was getting bigger by the minute.

I got ready for work, put the mouse and the trap in the back of the car and then started driving. But that mouse was making such a racket, I made the decision to get him out of my car fast. Rather than release him into a nice park on my way to work, I made a quick right turn and found myself in a lower income neighborhood. I stopped the car, took the trap out and then after opening it just a smidge......that mouse suddenly leapt 8 feet in the air and scrambled up someone's driveway.

When I told this story to Dick he was just appalled. "Maria, those people have a hard enough time without you driving by and flinging vermin at them." Uh. I hadn't really thought that part out. :-/

The days and nights after that little event were nice and quiet. I felt bad for the mouse since it's winter and all but it was good to have him gone.

I then got this email via Meg:

hi maria...

no need ta worry 'bout me. i got me a gig playing the ivories down on
troost at the homeless shelter. i miss your pot roast something fierce
though, i tell all my stinky buds about it every night, as we crunch on our moldin' leftovers.

PSST...tell my cuzzins back at the okeefe dishwasher hotel, howdy for me, maybe ill hike back home in the spring with all my pals,...for our seasonal reunion.

miss ya.

lil'chewy

And sure enough, there soon was evidence of another mouse in the kitchen. Feeling smug about how easy and fast it was to catch the first one, I knew I could handle this. I made a little peanut butter sandwich on a toasted English muffin and placed it in the trap. The next morning?

The mouse had taken the sandwich out of the trap (without having the trap go off!) and carried the little repast about 18 inches away, untouched, no nibbles, all muffin pieces where they should be, and just left it. Left it! Like it was a message. A personal message to me.

I watched the news that night and one of the things they reported was that it was very cold outdoors so mice were moving indoors. Huh? There must be a lot of other local people having to deal with this same problem...which does lead me to think in a paranoid but informed sort of way......that that creepy mouse might have been caught and then flung back to my house during a drive-by.

And now he's baaaaaaaaaaaack.

And he's mad.