So the mouse.
I was sitting here, in this very room, writing my entry just like I’m doing now, when Tilly walks past the doorway and stands there looking at me. With something in her mouth. She looked a bit distraught.
I leaned around my gigantic monitor to look at her and she started, as if to run away. What was freaking her out? Then I noticed that she had something in her mouth. Something black. Something’ nefarious somehow. I don’t remember what happened at that point, but I believe that she was acting so strangely, that I stood from my desk chair to check it out, causing her to drop whatever it was and then it seemingly rolled away, directly under my jacket lying on the floor. Tilly then went berserk trying to catch it. And that’s when I realized that the willy nilly scurrying was not just an errant pet toy and the forces of gravity. No, not even in Newton’s wildest dreams would there be enough gravity to cause the thing to switch directions and scamper like some wild mouse demon thing. No. It was alive. ALIVE!!!!!!!
I had a moment of panic. I looked around crazily for a mouse catching device. A jar candle and a very narrow Pier 1 vase were in the immediate vicinity. And the phone. I thought about throwing the phone at it, but the mouse is a very small target. But wait. Hey, the phone is a mouse catching device.
I called Esteban’s cell. I’m not proud of that.
While I was listening to the beginning of Esteban’s voice message and swearing, Tilly tried to dig it out from beneath my coat. Then it ran around the living room.
People, that’s when the shrieking began.
I’m not exactly proud of that either. I mean, I’m all about the Grrl Power! I’ve got the Gloria Steinem book. Until Sept 11 happened, I was going to buy a shirt that said ‘Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society’ because I thought it was a perfect representation of my brand of self-righteous bullshit. But man, a mouse changes all of that. Suddenly, I’m right back in the 50’s, wearing an apron and voting the way my husband tells me to vote.
Ok, to my defense, I wasn’t wearing shoes. Just socks, which as you all know are no match for some psychotic seed and berry forager who might just misinterpret my black cherry toenail polish as a rather succulent raspberry.
I understand now why women didn’t take the patriarchy and societal power in general away from the hands of the men. They probably were going to. They probably had all the stuff organized to take over the world, all the posters made. All the people of the world would be fed, all the wars would end, there would be enough everything for everyone and no one would ever be sad or upset again. They had t-shirts made up with empowering slogans. The napkins picked out for the victory banquet. And just as they were finalizing the final plans, perhaps they were coordinating their outfits for the victory banquet to make sure there would be no duplicates, someone said ‘Hey, what’s that???’ and everyone looked to watch as a little mouse scurried across the meeting room. And thus everyone realized that they could hardly take over the world when they were all screaming and standing on their chairs, so they just decided to call it a night and get their empowerment stuff from Dr. Phil and they all had a good laugh while they made quilts and swapped recipes calling for lots of cream cheese.
So the Tilly chased it into the computer room. Into a box that was laying there on its side. Here’s where a sane person would have calmly picked up the box and CLOSED THE FLAPS and then took it outside. But me? Well, that would have required some kind of self-possessed intelligence that I simply do not possess in times of crisis and vermin. Instead I called Esteban’s cell phone again. Tilly continued to try to dig it out of the box. I explained to him that there was a mouse in the house. He said he’d be right home. I’ll give Esteban credit. He’s really lousy at doing dishes and usually farts hideous horrible gas attacks at night, but in times of crisis, he is very level-headed and solid. Unlike his shrieking wife.
It was then that I thought to pick up the box. I was pretty sure that the mouse had scurried out and disappeared because Tilly was sitting there calmly licking herself, tired from all of this excitement. I mean, she was done, man. She was ready to rest upon her kitty laurels and soak up some praise. After all, she had proven that she could CAPTURE the mouse’. Now for some petting, a nice nap, a nibble of kibble, and then maybe we’d think about this mouse business again.
The box felt empty. Because apparently my hand is a scientific gauge able of discerning the difference between a 4 ounce box and a 4 ounce box with a 1 ounce mouse inside. I put the mouse back down. Then the craziness started again. The mouse ran from the box and under my desk. Then behind Esteban’s desk. Tilly routed around back there, then got disturbed when Esteban ran into the house, ready to save his wife from The Terror. He ran to the kitchen and retrieved a Gladware sandwich container in which to catch the mouse.
There was nothing we could do, shy of removing the 400 pound monitor and 400 pound steel desk from the back of the room. We figured that we’d let nature take its course. The mouse would come out. Tilly would get it.
We sat in the living room and watched television, each of us with one wary eye on the door to the computer room, Esteban’s hand resting on the shallow Glad container to be ready to strike.
Tilly figured it was a perfect time to collect her due praise. ‘No! No! Get the mouse!’ I pleaded. She just looked at me like I was the most infinitesimally stupid thing on the planet. She probably had seen the Booklist and probably has herself read both A Clockwork Orange AND Slaughterhouse Five AND knew who Ford Madox Ford was. Damn cat.
So we closed the door to the computer room and went to bed. I thought to myself ‘Hey, that room has two computers, but three mice. Heee!’ because sometimes I crack my own self up even when I haven’t been delving into the land of Malibu and Diet Cokes. The next morning, I got up and went down to our local strange retailer Fleet Farm, in which you can buy bovine inoculations, candy, garden implements, paneling for your rec room, clothing, toys, guns, ammunition, and everything else a good little farm girl would want. Most importantly, they carry the Tin Cat brand of live trap. This would allow me to catch the mouse and then drive to a distant wooded location, a mouse utopia so to speak, where then the mouse would live the rest of its days happy and contented and bewildered that it ever wanted to invade the little 50-year-old white four-bedroom bungalow in the suburbs when there was all of this rodential splendor to be had.
Even though the general consensus is that choosy mousers choose Jif, we were out, so I put a big gob of Honey Nut Skippy into the trap. A gob as big as my fist. I wanted it to be irrestible. I wanted it to sing the little mouse’s name, much like a canister of HobNobs will do to me. Then I placed it under the desk and proceeded to do all of my computing with my feet firmly mouse-protected in the bottom desk drawer.
Day by day, I kept checking the trap. Nothing. It had a clear viewing window on the top, so I could just look down into it. And then one morning, I regularly checked the trap (nothing) and then went to check my email. Then Tilly started nosing around the trap. Sniffing. Pawing. Huh?
I picked up the trap and noticed the tail. The mouse (although at this point, I wonder if it isn’t another type of rodent, perhaps a mole, because it was very very small) was hiding underneath the entrance to the trap, so you couldn’t see it via the window. Success.
I promptly forgot about the CD I had been burning, put on my shoes and drove the mouse to the wooded area about three blocks from our house, the place where I often see deer and pheasants. Then I let him go in a large grove of hickory trees and drove away imagining how he’d have to make friends with the locals and maybe he’d tell them the story of how he got to be in their Mouse Paradise. ‘No, you don’t understand, first there was the cat’s mouth but then’ I was in a car, man’. I was IN’A’CAR!!!!’ and they probably won’t believe him. Or they’d make him a mouse shaman. Especially strange because I’m pretty sure it was a mole. Although, as you all know, I’m pretty bad at identifying a mole, so don’t ask if I’d like to wager on that. It just might be a very small badger or something for all I know.
I’ve got pictures, but I haven’t yet installed the camera software on my new pc, so you’ll have to wait. I’ll bet that you’re very excited. Yes. You can probably hardly stand the anticipation. Mmmmhmmm.
