Mousecapades

I recently had a phone conversation with my mother-in-law, Emie, about her cat, Scooter, and his recent "prize." He had brought in a mouse. They found the tail first, then chased the mouse around their house for an hour trying to catch the thing. She asked if we ever got mice. I replied "no". That sealed our fate.

A few days later, Chad and I would wake up in the wee hours because of some weird noise coming from our bathroom cabinets. Scraps and Farley were camped out in front of the cabinets just waiting. It was either gnawing or scratching. It was a rodent. Chad discovered how he got back there and peeled off part of our base board to get a better look. When we shone a flashlight, sure enough, there he was. He was BIG. He was cute. Kind of hamster-like and all innocent looking.

The next day, Chad worked hard to construct a humane mouse trap. We were going to lie in wait until the little guy came out to get a taste of our peanut butter trap. This took hours, people. Chad and I would wait outside our bathroom door trying to be as still and quiet as possible. At one point Chad's stomach let loose a ridiculously long growl which set me off on one of those I'm going-to-laugh-at-a-totally-inappropriate-time-but-I-can't-help-it moments. (My brother used to stand behind my mom when I was getting in trouble making faces creating a similar inappropriate moment.) "ABORT MISSION" I snorted as Chad looked at me in disgust. We decided to try again after dark when he was more likely to come out.

From about 9-midnight we lay outside our bathroom doors watching the little guy poke his head out only to retreat back to safety. Our necks were getting stiff. Our eyes were getting blurry from staring at one spot through a narrow crack in the doors. Chad thought he had him at one point only to find that Wodney (I named him after Wodney in Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester-- one of my favorite children's books.) was too quick for us.

Finally, it was time to make a decision. We had been told that mice will gnaw on PVC pipe creating plumbing issues. Reluctantly we went to bed after placing a mouse trap out. Chad - bless this man - got up at 2:30 to check on things so I wouldn't have to find a dead mouse when I got up. He got up to find the trap in the middle of the floor --empty. The mouse was either too big for the trap, or walked over it. Yeah for Wodney!! To make a long story less long, Chad cornered Wodney behind the toilet and managed to get him into a shoebox. He took him out to the field behind our house. Chad didn't think he acted injured, so everything worked out for the best. That made us both happy.

So, how did Wodney get into our house in the first place? We don't know. I have a theory...please see the related post about Fatty McStriped Butt (aka Scraps) below.