Mice...Yes, Act IV

This mouse thing is such a part of my life now that it has four parts.  Just think of it as a play...because Act V is sure to happen.

I have to back up a little and explain how the first mouse was disposed of.  We have already established that Greg is terrified, no, paralyzed by mice and any rodent, really.  Bravely though, he decided to check to see if the supertrap had worked.  Instead of getting on the chair, which is my preferred method of peeking in on the death zone, he gets a pair of tongs (thankfully the extra pair that he bought at the Dollar Store when he moved to Campbell County) and grabs the trap.

It says on the trap packaging that you can't see the mouse once it has been killed.  Well, let me just say that they mice in our house must be the extra-long variety.

So, Greg  went after the trap with tongs and when he saw the tail and hindparts of the mouse hanging out, he dropped the trap and the tongs, jumped backwards and said some curse words. I’m sure it didn’t help that I heard all this from the bedroom and dissolved in giggles. Since that incident I have been on clean up duty. It is good to have a sense of humor about it, I guess.

We did catch Mousey's friend, which brings the dead mouse total to two.  Three if you count the one I found in the basement that seems to have died from natural causes.  However, its hair was fluffy and sticking out like maybe it had been electrocuted or something.  A little weird.

Unfortunately, Greg saw a mouse, a live one, in the basement yesterday.  It was running down the wall.  Needless to say, I had to coax Greg out of the basement and up onto the couch for some counseling.  Just kidding.  But he did break out in a cold sweat when he saw it.  Poor Greg.

Mice Act III

So the snap traps aren't working for us, unless our thumbs are the problem, which they are not.  I peruse the "Death to Vermin" aisle in Food Lion and notice that there is a nice little trap that looks a lot easier to set, and bonus, mouse goes in, mouse trips death bar, mouse dies an instantaneous death, and the killers never have to see the victim.

Perfect.  I buy two.

These are much, much easier to set.  I put some peanut butter in the little cup (it says 1/8 of a teaspoon...but does it know that Mousey expects much more from us since he has had at least two tablespoons of peanut butter, a large piece of cheese, and two, yes two cheese on toasty wheat crackers?  At least he is now much fatter and maybe his reflexes are a little slower).

We wait...

And wait...

YAHOOO!  Here comes the rejoicing part!  We have murdered another being!!!! 

That day, I scrubbed shelves, disinfected shelves, and then put everything away. 

Two mornings later...more mouse turds, all over my newly cleaned and disinfected shelves.  AHHH!  Mousy had friends (or maybe family)!

Mice Act II

Okay, so the mouse needs to be dead, like yesterday.  Greg bought a couple of those snap traps because we both think the sticky traps are really awful.  Greg read the directions on the packaging, loaded the trap and then set it.

We waited...

And waited...

The next morning, we climbed up on the chair expectantly and saw....that the mouse had enjoyed the free buffet of peanut butter we had so graciously set out for him. 

So, we tested the trap using some old tongs.  It worked, sort of.  It was kind of hard to trigger, but this time I used some cheese and I was sure to wedge it on there good so Mousey would have to work a little harder for his next (maybe his last?) meal.

We waited....

And waited...

Well, the mouse liked the Parmesan cheese just as much as he liked the peanut butter.  How about cracker?  At this point I was suspicious that the trap may not have been set properly, so I load it up and set it, and it catches my thumb.  Ouch.  I extract my thumb and set it again, and again, my thumb is caught.  Ouch again...a little louder.  One more time...ouch and a couple of expletives under my breath (5 year olds repeat everything).  Okay...finally it is loaded and set.

We waited....

And waited...

Mousey thinks that cheese on toasty wheat tastes great, and he hopes that we continue the variety of foods.  Apparently these traps only catch thumbs.

Mice Act I

So after the fiasco called "moving" was over, I figured that we could start unpacking and be mostly finished and back to normal before my new job started on July 26.  Well, I should have known that things don't usually go according to schedule.  Around about the second day we were in our rented home, I began unpacking the kitchen.  Thankfully, the first box I opened was bakeware and cookware...not too bad, all of this went in lower cabinets.  As I progressed to glassware and dishes, I opened the upper cabinets.  I climbed up on the chair with a load of dishes and found....MOUSE TURDS!!!!!! Now, ordinarily, mice are kind of cute.  Big ears, cute little paws....but only when they are housed at Petsmart or out in a field somewhere. They are NOT at all cute when they are in a kitchen!!!  There were not just a few mouse turds, they were EVERYWHERE.  Piles of them.  It looked like mice had had the run of the place for a while. 

And then, a little lightbulb went off in my head....Greg had called me about two weeks before we moved to tell me that he had seen a mouse.

The normal course of action upon seeing a mouse is as follows:

1.  Buy a trap.
2.  Load the trap with something a mouse might find yummy, i.e. cheese, cracker, peanut butter.
3.  Set the trap.
4. Place trap where the mouse will come upon it.
5. Wait overnight for the mouse to walk unsuspecting to his or her death.
6.  Dispose of trap and mouse.
7.  Rejoice!

The normal course of action if you are my husband is as follows:

1.  Call your wife and tell her about the mouse.
2.  Sit paralyzed as far away from the mouse sighting as possible.
3.  Even though it is way after normal business hours, contemplate calling an exterminator.
4.  Nevermind the exterminator's place of business, google him and call his home number.
5.  Do nothing about the accumulation of turds or the fact that the mouse will keep coming back until you kill it.

When I asked my husband if he was going to get a trap he replied, "No!  Then I'll have to get rid of the mouse once it is caught!"  Oh well.  So, there I was in the kitchen with lots of dishes and glasses to wash because they were in close proximity to rodent feces, chewed on spaghetti to throw away, popcorn kernals to get rid of, leaking vegetable oil to throw away (the mouse punctured the bottle....trying to be healthy maybe?) and countless shelves to disinfect.  Fun times after such an uneventful, ha ha, moving trip.

Adventures in Moving

Projected Schedule

12:00 June 15 Last Day at Old Job
2:00 Get in the Truck and Drive to Campbell County with the Girls and the Dogs (Greg
has the Howling Cats With Him...Lucky Him!)
8:00 Arrive Safely After an Uneventful Trip and Go to Bed

Real Schedule 
      
2:00 Arrive Home from Old Job
2:01  Realize that the Moving Truck is TOO SMALL!!!!!!
2:01  Ignore Greg's Remark That I Booked the Smaller Truck Because the Jew in Me Said it Was Cheaper
2:02  Get a Trailer to Pull Behind our Truck
2:03  Did the New Job Come With a Moving Allowance???
2:04-11:00  Pack, More Packing, and Attempt to Get Our Car on the Tow Dolly (Is it
supposed to flip up like that when you drive onto it???)
11:15  Lock Doors, Put Trash Out, Load Girls, Load Cats, Load Dogs...Check Doors Again
11:16  Goodbye House
11:17  Oh my God, What are We Doing?
2:30 AM   Arrive at Hotel to Spend the Night/Morning
2:31 Unload Girls, Dogs, Cats, Litter, Litterbox, Food Dishes, Water Dishes, Coolers, Clothes (but we didn't pack any overnight bags because we had delusional visions of being in our own beds several hours ago)
2:40AM  Where is the Kitty Litter?????
3:00AM Finally, Finally Go to Sleep
2:00PM June 16  Arrive Safely in Campbell County