Mouse House

A couple weeks ago Big Sister saw a mouse run through her room, into the hallway, and into my room.

This surprised me, because our rooms are upstairs and I've never seen mice or any evidence of them there.

The next day she saw one exit the computer room and enter the sewing/guest room. This also surprised me. I began to wonder if she wasn't just seeing things or embellishing for effect.

Until I saw something scurry under the crib and into the furnace duct. Ewww...

And then I heard something chewing decidedly and loudly under the kitchen stove. At least it was downstairs.

And saw something scurry along the cabinets and into the crack beside the dishwasher. Ick.

Hubby saw something scurry into another under-cabinet hole, and followed the sighting up with a half-hour stake out on the kitchen floor with his blow gun at the ready. After I asked him to put his new .45 semi-auto away. I like my kitchen.

We set some live traps, but didn't have good follow-through. I'm not motivated to look for live mice, after all.

THEN - last night - I was cooking pork chops. Lots of them. I had them on a cookie sheet (before cooking) to the right of the stove, where sits my kombucha brews, and my blender- and food processor-bases. And some dirty dishes. Always. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and looked over in time to see one of those nasty little somethings gallop through the mess of dishes, across my cookie sheet*, onto the stovetop, behind the frying pan (in which pork chops were cooking), across the stovetop to the left-hand counter, dodging the egg-basket and bowl of cookie dough to disappear behind the rear of the stove.

I let out the most girly scream I've ever uttered... high-pitched, loud, and with that blood-curdling warble you hear in the old movies.

I am so ashamed.

Moreso by my scream than by the realization my beautiful kitchen has been molested in such a wicked fashion.

When I went to town on Thursday, I bought a handful of traps. When I discovered that Stuart Little had discovered the pile of barley my Little Artist put in a drawer ages ago, I set my fanciest trap.

An hour later, the thing was fed to the cat. And while I was hoping that we just had one incredibly mobile mouse, Hubby fed another offering to the felines when he got home and checked it, so I'm guessing my hope was delusional.

So - here's to my new pasttime: washing every dishtowel, apron, and potholder and the miscellaneous items in The Drawer (including the wax paper and egg-slicer). And getting rid of the barley.

*In case you happen to be one of the delightful guests that visited the night I discuss... and took away pork chops as a "to-go" version of my deprived (yes deprived, not depraved. I don't get to do it much) hospitality, please be assured that no pork chops were harmed in the galloping of the Nasty Critter. I am a careful cook, and nothing which you ate had, at any time, come into contact with anything the Nasty Critter may have molested.