A Mouse in the House

I got up Friday morning and captured a mouse in the house. My son and I were watching the vice presidential debates Thursday night, and afterward I was just sitting there, thinking about the debates (my vote is solidified, that’s for sure), and this mouse runs across the floor.

I start eeeking. Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! My son comes out of his room and says, “What’s wrong?”’

The mouse has run behind the entertainment center. My first inclination is to put our best hunter of our three cats, cat number one, on the job, but she soon gets bored and walks away, since it won’t move. My son shoos it out from behind the entertainment center with a broom, and I am supposed to direct it out the back door with another broom. It shoots out from behind the entertainment center, hits my broom, bounces off it and heads not outside (the door is open) but across the room and under the china cabinet. I squeak some more and walk around wondering what to do. Finally I go to sleep. There is nothing I can do and it is 11:30 and I am exhausted.

I wake up at 4:30 and go to the bathroom. I close the door and sit down. I notice cat number two is in the bathroom, and I closed the door behind me. I look at the door again to make sure she didn’t follow me in. It is closed. I look up. The mouse is on top of the shower curtain, looking down at me. It is so cute, like the kind you see in children's books. I get my rubber gloves and a bucket and a hand broom, and gently tip it into the bucket. Then I put the bucket outside and tip it over, so the mouse can escape.

Here I thought I was safe, going to bed. For some reason I didn’t think mice could crawl up the sides of things, like bed legs. Fooled me. On top of the shower curtain, indeed. It must have come into the house while I was unloading groceries that day. I had the door to the garage open for a while, while I was bringing stuff in. It must have been in the garage. Otherwise, I have a hole in my house and will be getting little visitors all winter.

I feel good that I’ve saved a little life. Then, yesterday, I’m working on my manuscript, all is quiet in the house, and I hear thumping against the wall beside me. I look up and cat number three is looking in the window, with a mouse in her mouth.

Can it be? Did the little mouse really not run away?

I open the door and it startles the cat so much she drops the mouse. It starts running in circles. So it’s alive. I scoop up the cat and bring her in, so the mouse can escape. The cat is adamant about wanting to go outside again. Now, this particular cat is slower than the other two, so I figure I’ll give the mouse five minutes to scramble to safety. I let the cat out again, and within seconds, she’s dancing with the mouse again.

But it doesn’t run away. It sits there and glares up at her, nose to nose, like “You’re not going to get the best of me!”

She bats at it and it goes flying. The mouse pulls itself together and runs not away, but directly between the cat’s paws and under her, not once but three times—kamikaze diving the cat. Meanwhile the cat is jumping in the air and twisting around like it’s being zapped by an unseen zapper, before I take pity on the both of them and scoop the cat up again. The mouse runs under a plant, right next to the back door. Death awaits it for certain if it stays there.

My son comes home and I say, “It’s that mouse again. We need to save it from the cats." He gets a bucket and manages to scoop the mouse into it, and shows it to me. It sure looks like the same mouse. He takes it to the edge of the yard and lets it go.

I hope it stays out of trouble this time.