The "Mouse" That Nearly Caused Our Divorce

There comes a time in every tree-hugging hippie's life where you just have to go with the rat poison, right?

Remember the "mouse" that the cats brought in a while ago? (I am calling it a "mouse" because after seeing it, I think it was something that starts with "r" and rhymes with "cat", but we cope how we cope.) Well, our early attempts to trap it were, in retrospect, hilariously JV. This guy was, possibly, smarter than we are. And he liked it here.

David and I spent approximately 6 hours last Saturday building - nay, creating - what was essentially a direct chute from the fridge out the back door. This was a work of art, really to finally GET THE DANG THING OUT. He was becoming, in your choice of analyses, either the Alpha Being in our house, running the show; or our newest pet. And neither was acceptable. This elaborate extermination involved the movement of furniture, cupboards full of kitchenware, big sheets of random vinyl found in our garage (all of that junk in there is good for something)...you name it. This was serious.

Of course, we had taken out two of the kitchen drawers to rid them of their "mousely" contents, and as we're getting ready to flush the bloody thing like a couple of Steve Irwins, all I can think is "I know that mouse is going to run in that hole created by the missing drawers."

But do I say anything? Of course not.

Gentle reader, you know where this is going.

Fridge moves, "mouse" - now nearly as big as Farley after a month of gorging on cat food and banana smoothies - runs straight for the door. He's going! He's going! Just as we planned! Run for the door, "mouse," run for the door! He's!....he's running into the hole that is created by the missing drawers.

And like that...poof...he's gone.

And David and I look at each other, he with visage filled with shame, me with self-loathing. I'm not sure we talked to each other the rest of the day.

A week goes by with this bugger ruling the roost. We trap the kitties in there, cutting off their food at night, thinking they really, NO, REALLY this time, need to start doing their job. And we wake up to "evidence" of "mouse" "existence" all over the place, and Simon sleeping on the stove.

Every day, we moved the fridge to try and flush him out again, David saying "excuse me" as he tries to squeeze past my Santa Claus - level 32 week pregnant gut, as I just stand there, knowing he's not going to get past me. But this guy's onto us now. He knows where we're looking. He's deep undercover. This guy should be sent to find find Bin Laden.

I'm having horrific nightmares of the "mouse" gnawing through the kitchen door and standing on our bed as we sleep, or waking up one morning to Danny playing with it and calling it "Buddy."

Every night, David laid out ever-larger traps. More complicated traps. More expensive traps. We tried peanut butter, banana, cat food. Nothing. He eventually laid out a trap that would literally break a human finger, and we woke up to a de-activated trap and the peanut butter licked off.

I'm not sure I can explain the level of frustration felt when you literally cannot find nor control something making you put every scrap of food in the TRUNK OF YOUR CAR, waking up to find out it has once again treated your home like a college freshman on Spring Break.

So, gentle reader, I'm very sad to tell you that we eventually resorted to poison. But, I like being married.

"Mouse," RIP.