Last week, while working late on some programming, I saw this little fellow jumping against the sliding glass door trying to get in. It was unusual in my experience, because it was not cold out, he was not trying to escape from any danger (the porch is enclosed), and strangest of all, I was sitting right there.
I contemplated on whether or not to tell Nancy, as her reaction to small critters in the house might have been pretty intense. A few nights later, after seeing nothing more of the mouse, I mentioned to Nancy what had happened, but reassured her that he had been outside the glass door.
As expected, Nancy began to sense the presence of the small rodent immediately. The next night as we were getting ready for bed, she whispered in an urgent tone "Did you hear that?!" I told her that I had not heard anything and she insisted there was something rustling right beside the bed.
We turned on all the lights, I pulled out the flashlight and looked under the bed. We moved things around and found nothing. She conceded that her imagination must be playing tricks on her hearing. We went to sleep.
About 5 am the next morning, I felt something run across my legs. I lay there in the dark, again faced with the decision of whether or not to say anything to Nancy. I didn't need to. In her trademark urgent whisper, she said "Did you feel that?!" I said yes, then turned on the light and looked around. Of course, there was nothing to be seen.
I remembered the boldness of the mouse when I had seen him jumping against the glass. This exercise far surpassed that one in sheer courage and defiance of the natural order. We did not have any food in our bedroom. I could only surmise that the mouse had decided to show us who was really at the top of the pecking order in our home. I had visions of
Mouse Hunt flashing through my mind. I steeled myself again any sense of compassion for the mouse and determined to help him meet his demise.
I stumbled down the hall and baited the 4 traps I had purchased with peanut butter, then set them and brought them back to the room. Nancy was sitting in the bed, clutching the covers to her nose, and said, wide-eyed "He peeked in under the door!"
I put two traps in the bedroom, one more under the dining room table, and one on the porch where I had first seen the mouse. We closed the door to our room and turned off all the lights and waited in the dark in the living room. A few minutes later, we heard something on the shower curtain we keep under Corben's eating area -- that I remembered having seen a partially eaten slice of quesadilla sitting on the night before.
After an hour of waiting and not hearing the trap snap, the kids woke up, and we went over to see if the trap had been touched. Sure enough, the peanut butter had been licked off. Of greater interest however, was the fact that the quesadilla was completely gone.
Nancy was nearly undone at this point. The mouse running over our bed had pushed the limits of what her nerves could handle. I knew that we had to get the mouse, but wondered how we could if he was able to clean the mouse trap without tripping it. I considered building a better mouse trap using spare parts from the garage: string, duct tape, my shotgun.
The next night, it was getting toward bedtime and we were faced with the thought of going to bed. Nancy was in no frame of mind to set foot in the bedroom. Suddenly, she jumped into hyper-alert, hushed-urgent mode and said "He just ran into the closet!". I sprang into action and ran to the garage. I grabbed two boxes and a walking stick and ran back to the living room. Nancy confirmed that he had peeked out, but had not left the closet.
I put one box against the wall so the door would open directly into it. I placed the other box right beside it, with the side making a wall that the mouse could not jump over. I opened the door and sealed the space under the door and in the hinge with the door mat. He had nowhere to go but into the first box. In order to guarantee that there was no space between said box and the corner of the wall and the floor, Nancy had to hold down the box while I emptied the closet. She helped, defying her natural instinct to stand on the sofa.
I started removing items from the closet, trying to get the taller items fist to avoid the possibility of the mouse climbing into our coats, which were hanging in the closet. One item at a time I slowly emptied the closet, carefully checking each item for any unwanted passengers. I got to the last item, a cloth bag containing Christmas decorations, and saw the mouse looking at me from behind it. I told Nancy to make sure the box stayed tightly against the wall, no matter what. I grabbed the bag, and as I lifted it across our contraption, the mouse ran under it and right into Nancy's box. Fortunately Nancy had not seen the mouse -- I am afraid that if she had she may have reacted and inadvertently let the mouse escape.
I grabbed the box and sat it upright, the mouse scampering across the bottom, but unable to escape. That is when I took the picture above. Nancy was torn as she looked at the mouse, noting how cute he looked. I had a general idea when I ran to the garage of what I needed to do
to catch the mouse, but had not planned on how to dispatch him should we succeed in catching him.
***** WARNING -- FOLLOWING ARE THE PERHAPS UNPLEASANT DETAILS OF WHAT HAPPENED NEXT ******
I had considered using the walking stick I had in my hand to bludgeon the mouse, but I did not want to get mouse pieces on it as it was hand carved and light in color. I have a blowgun with long steel darts, but it is not really effective at killing. I was hoping for a powerful pellet gun that could quickly end the mouse's life with little suffering. I do not own such a pellet gun. What I do have is an old, very weak bb handgun.
I'll spare you the details of the execution, but I did use the BB gun, it just took a few shots.
In the end, natural order prevailed and the mouse is gone. We have replaced Corben's chair at the table with a high chair that has a large tray. The shower curtain is gone.
Our son Corben is a year and a half old.
