Of mice and men...

Actually (I hope) it is is just "mouse" not mice.

Sorry to leave you hanging, but earlier in the week I mentioned we had a mouse in the house.
Yes, we also recently got rid of fleas too.
Why do I feel like we are one creature away from being on the cover of the Orkin Pest Control Christmas card?!?!

Anyhoo, I went to our bathroom a few nights ago to get ready for bed and lo and behold a small gray mouse went flying across my vanity. I suppressed the need to scream since all the children were sleeping...and there is hardly any creature that would scare me enough to scream and wake the kids. That in itself would cause pure pandemonium...

So I quickly rushed out to the living room to alert J that we had an intruder in the house! He stared at me blankly then said, "what"?!? In the most exasperated tone you could imagine...I cannot even convey it with mere words.
I then possibly choose a minor expletive followed by the word mouse. Then bathroom. And then COME NOW.
Needless to say I finally got him up off the couch and moving.

Sure enough when we arrived back on the scene the "said intruder" was behind my collection of various face washes, hairsprays, lotions, and anything else I have over there that can hide the fact I have three kids and showers don't always happen...

I told J I could not go to sleep if we didn't catch it so he headed to the garage to grab some old boxes. He was going to capture it.

Did y'all know field mice are quick?

Real quick.

Needless to say the mouse decided he had just about enough of our shenanigans and he tried to end it all by leaping to his death off the vanity counter.

I, in turn, also nearly met my maker when I tried to leap up onto the edge of the tub...
(I swear that little thing was coming after me)

I lost my footing, and ended up sprawled out in the tub like some sort of circus act gone bad.
It wasn't pretty.

It turns out the mouse ran for the safety of the linen closet. I mean where else would ya go when very large humans are after you...

J declared he was no match for the mouse so we stuffed an old bath towel under the crack of the door and I prayed to the big Guy that the little furry guy would stay in there for the night.
I slept with one eye open.
And let the record stand, I never thought a bath towel would prevent the little varmint from escaping.

But alas, it did.

So the next day I head to the local Lowe's in hunt of semi-automatic weapon in order to take this guy out. I was lured to the traps with the words "KILLS INSTANTLY". But alas, J has heart for animals.

(Which again, I know I say this a lot, but is another post entirely. Like when he nearly gave us all whiplash because he was avoiding hitting the wooly worms in the neighborhood... Or the time we rescued a baby bunny and I told him to let it go, but he took it up to the office and left him in a box to supposedly let go the next day. Well, the rabbit got out over night and they had to hunt all over the office for him the next day.)

So I bought 12 dozen of the "live traps" and was ready to go into battle.
Ok, really I just bought 2.
But I wanted to buy 12 dozen, to be certain we got him.

That afternoon we placed the trap...and to make a long story short, we had him captured by the next evening.
(I think he was leery of the gourmet cheese I laid out for him.
We had just hosted a Christmas party so the only cheese I had in the house was Gruyere cheese.)

So I am thinking to myself, all right, let's take him out to the field and dump him.
Oh, noooooooo!
Dr. Doolittle had other plans.
I had to clean out one section of the hamster cage so that we could gingerly place him in there, keep him until morning (we wouldn't want to put him out at night, that wouldn't be safe), and then set him free into this big bad world.

Well, I had news for Dr. D, ain't no way I am keepin that thing in the house one more night.
So you know what he did?!?!
He put it in the hamster cage, then put the hamster cage in a box, then put that box in another box. And then put him in his car.

I thought to myself, now who's the animal killer??? He's going to suffocate. But I didn't say anything.

And to sum it up...next morning: mouse still alive, kids got to see him, he drove it to some remote field and let it go.

Where 5 minutes later a hawk probably ate it.

(But we won't tell him that)