My day starts in the usual manner, a scream from Sid, alerting me to a mouse in the dog food bin. Rob said he would deal with it - my hero ! - but I notice a while later he is wandering around the house appearing to be searching for something. "Did you deal with the mouse?" I ask hopefully, "Not yet" he grumpily replies, "I'm looking for something to catch it in".
OMG ! What a wuss ! "Don't bother" I snap testily, "I'll take care of it myself". I march into the crawl space - well it's more of a squeeze actually, because it is a really tiny door, only to hear Sidney yelling at her father "Don't let her do it, she'll get stuck" My diet starts tomorrow ! The good news is, I didn't get stuck, but I was wedged in pretty tight and there wasn't a lot of room to maneuver. To be fair, it wasn't just me, everything that doesn't have a home gets tossed in the crawlspace and usually remains just inside the door. It is a rare occasion that anyone needs to venture further inside.
Anyway, I am trying, despite the constrictions, to catch the mouse, only he scarpers to the back of the food bin. Who could blame him ? I can't reach him, so I start prodding at him with the scoop hoping to drive him forward, to within my grasp. Unfortunately all I succeeded in doing was burying the poor little bugger under an avalanche of kibble. I managed to excavate him safely, and went to scoop him out, but he'd had enough of this game and made a bid for freedom. I think he was dazed and confused, because when he hit the ground, he scrambled around in circles instead of heading for cover.
Meanwhile, there I am with my ass end stuck out the door, swearing at the mouse, with Rob offering his two cents from the peanut gallery behind me. "I told you I'd take care of it. You should have let me do it. Now the mouse is going to be loose in the crawlspace" droning on and on and on. My immediate concern was that the mouse would make a dash through my legs and be loose in the house instead, but I didn't dare voice that concern. (Just as an aside, I had a typo in the word house, and the spell check gave me the option of correcting it to "Nuthouse", which is actually a more accurate description of our home).
Fortunately, thanks to my ninja like actions, I pounced and was able to grab the mouse by the tail - I think I may have mentioned in my "How To Catch Mice 101" blog - never go near the end that has teeth. This was the sorriest excuse for a mouse that I have ever seen, normally the rodents we catch (isn't that sad that I was able to use the word normally?) are well fed creatures with shiny coats, but this one was thin and scraggly, and it's fur looked like the 'Before' picture in a hair product commercial. Even the cat managed to look disgusted as I dangled it in front of it's nose. It briefly crossed my mind to feed it before I tossed it outside, but even I knew that would be destined to end in disaster, so I dumped it in the flowerbed instead. Run, be free little mouse.
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