Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Eek! A Mouse!

My husband is a sales rep for Bathfitters, and his post is located inside the mall. That means, when the mall had extended holiday shopping hours, Hubby and his co-workers also had extended work hours. That means he had to work at 6 am one morning. That means he had to get up at 4:30 so he could leave the house at 5 to get to work by 6. That means I have to get up early with the kids and let the dog out and feed the cats.

So, one of those early mornings when I was walking around like a zombie in the dark, BC the cat pounced into the kitchen with a mouse! Eeek! A mouse! He let the mouse go and proceeded to play cat-and-mouse with the poor little thing.

Now I know it's what cats do, they play with their victims until it's dead and then either leave it and walk away, or if they are hungry, eat it. But I don't want to see the poor mouse suffer.

With Maisie the puppy getting curious, BC grabbed the mouse and ran off into the other room. I followed to keep an eye on the whereabouts of the mouse, but BC didn't like the audience and took the mouse and went into the living room. I decided to give him his space and busy myself in the kitchen.

Well, about 5 minutes later, here comes BC looking all frustrated. He is looking around and sniffing under the fridge, then the oven, the cabinets and behind the trash can. Oh dear. He lost the mouse! Just then, the girls woke up and I had hoped the mouse business would have been over with before they got out of bed. Now I had to tell them a mouse was on the loose in the house and to keep an eye out for it.

The girls took it as a challenge and grabbed flashlights and went on a mouse hunt! They searched everywhere-- under the couch, under the TV stand, behind the furniture, under, over and every place in between. That mouse was seriously gone. ugh!

I spent the rest of the day with my eyes on the floor, constantly searching for a brown body, hoping that I'd be the one to find it and not the girls.

Maisie found it! I have no idea where she found it, but later in the afternoon, she was seen with a mouse in her mouth! I chased her down and disposed of the mouse. That's the end of that!

Or so I thought.

Yesterday, walking by the fridge, I smelled something that you don't ever want to smell in your home. It smelled pretty strong and I knew, just knew, something was dead around there. Hubby was at work last night, so I waited until morning. If what I'm smelling is indeed a dead body, it's not going anywhere.

Hubby smelled it and agreed, something died. we pulled out the fridge and other than lots of dust bunnies and few fridge magnets and some papers, nothing. He took off the back, nothing. It had to be under the fridge. We emptied the fridge and he tilted it, and sure enough, I peek under and see the dead body of a mouse. Talk about stinky! We disposed of the body, cleaned up under there, vacuumed the coils and washed the floor. All before breakfast!

Now that better be the end of that!

7 comments:

K.L. said...

Feel lucky. When my cat brought in a live mouse, it was a guest for several months. It could jump into and out of the tub to get water. The cat never was able to catch it. I finally trapped it in the tub and got it into a tupperware container. Damn cat.

Karen Mayes said...

Hahaha... KL, really? For several months and your cat never caught it? Sounds like straight out of the TV cartoon show, I forgot its name... Ben and something?

Sparx said...

Oy oy oy...! Yucko... we're sort of lucky that our old puss can't see, smell or hear any mice that make it into our flat so we aren't at risk of dead bodies... just the mice themselves. At least you're not squeamish, my neighbour rang me from upstairs, she was on a chair and had seen a mouse!!! Happy New Year!

K.L. said...

Karen, the best part was the commotion when I caught it. The family was bravely outside the closed bathroom door, keeping a towel stuffed under the door just in case the mouse tried to escape. They were laughing hysterically at the sounds from inside. The mouse was squeaking loudly, shampoo bottles were flying, I was cussing a blue streak, the container was whapping on the tub as I kept missing the mouse. Lots of fun.

K.L. said...

Oh, and the cartoon was Tom and Jerry. Yes, the mouse was way better than the cat in this case. And it could jump really high.

Lantana said...

This story sounds so familiar. My grey cat (who used to be my husband's barn cat) brings in live snakes and bats them around and plays so cute! And I think I have already shared my story about when BG (the former barn cat) brought in a baby skunk! She had to climb up a drain pipe to get the skunk up here, unless the skunk followed BG!

Lantana

SabrinaT said...

Yikes! At least he is gone now.. Happy New Year.