The Great Mouse Hunt

Seth told me the other day that he had heard something crunching in his room the night before. Those who have read this blog in the past know that Seth tends to travel in a little different orbit than the rest of us, so I just told him maybe there was a carpenter bee behind his dresser. Or maybe something had found some of the food that is bound to be in a 14yo boy's room. Who knows. He was serious, and just knew that something was in there, and for some reason, he thought it was a rat. Hmmm.........

Later that afternoon, he came out and said that Bandit, our big dumb lug fat cat, was stalking something, and he had, indeed, seen a mouse scuttle across the room. Crazy. Now, we do tend to see ONE mouse a year in this house -- it's an old house -- but it's always in the fall, right when the cold weather starts. Not in the summer, but hey, the kid saw it, so there must be one. I went in to check it out, and the Fat Cat was trying desperately to get behind the dresser, and Jill's dog was, for some reason, desperately trying to get under the bed. Well, I had Seth pull the dresser out, and found the dog brush that had been missing, several pens, a pair of flip flops, and enough dog hair to stuff a small pillow. Kinda like when I cleaned out the couch. The only thing we didn't find was a mouse, but we did get all the crap cleaned out before we put the dresser back, almost crunching Bandit in the process, because he was determined to get back there.

A couple hours later, Seth ran out and said that Bandit had indeed caught a mouse, followed by the inevitable "SEE, I told you I heard something in there." Turned out that Bandit, the big fat lug, had caught the mouse, tossed it around a couple of times before dropping it, giving it ample time to run for its life into a corner and disappear. Seth was, of course, freaked out, thinking that Bandit would drop it on his pillow in the middle of the night.

Next morning, I checked: no mouse on the bed. No cat stalking. Life moves on, at least for us, cause that mouse is probably dead.

Mid morning, Seth tells me that Bandit caught the mouse whilst I was in the shower, then ran downstairs with it. Not good! There is a lot of stuff in the basement. Stuff that I don't want a mouse eating, and stuff I don't want a mouse rotting in. We went down and tried to find it, to no avail, so I just prepared for the worst: opening a box one day and finding Mickey dead at the bottom. The day moves on, and then about 9 o'clock, Dan yells "come here, and bring the camera." Well, my camera is dead, and it's in the basement, so no go on that one, big guy. I run over, and he and Seth are standing on the stairs, staring at Bandit.

Apparently, the mouse either dragged itself out of its grave, or Bandit came back and got it, because now it was lying on the basement floor next to him. He was looking mighty smug, probably because we'd all said that he was too fat to grab it, but there it was. I asked Dan if it was dead, and he said yes. Seth said it wasn't, and I wasn't convinced either, so Dan tossed a wad of paper its way, and yep, it moved. Not much, but more than a dead thing would. I told him to get it the hell outta my house, and put it out far enough that the dogs wouldn't get it.

Few minutes later, I'm sitting on the couch, innocently IM'ing my niece, when in walks Dan, carrying a plastic drinking glass that he's covering with a gloved hand. He came over and started to lift the hand off the top, and was met with a blood curdling scream from his soul mate, followed quickly by me yelling "GET THAT THING THE HELL OUTTA MY HOUSE!" It was at that point that he stopped, stared, and turned the glass over, dumping the contents on my new rug. Only there were no contents. That damn glass was as empty as Sarah Palin's head, and Dan just doubled over laughing. I did too, and laughed literally till I cried, until Seth came skidding in the room, asking what the heck had happened. We couldn't even tell him.

A while later, I asked Dan to get me a glass of water, because he was in the kitchen. In he walks with the same stinkin' glass, now half full of water. I was horrified, even when he insisted that the mouse had never been in that glass, but I told him I didn't want hantavirus, so go wash his hands and get me a different glass. He did, but he was still laughing when we went to bed.

Dan said he'd taken it outside and tossed it over the fence in the backyard. Poor thing! First it survives one cat attack. Then it survives a second cat attack that involved just about everything but waterboarding, only to be followed by an Air France flight over our fence, and Dan laughing about the whole thing. Seth still has that "I told you so" look whenever it's brought up, and Bandit looks alternatively proud of himself, and pissy that we took his prize away. Me? I am gonna get my own drink the next time.

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