Wee Little Mousie

Just before Christmas I found evidence of a mouse in my kitchen cabinets.

We have cats and a dog, so I was a little surprised. I cleaned up, washing everything in the drawers, wiping down the shelves and the insides. I called a halt to composting until spring. I started packing food more tightly, even though there was no evidence of mice in the places I actually keep food. Only utensils. I think it's because the mice live in the walls, and they would have to cross the kitchen floor to get to the cabinets we keep food in. Anyway, long story short, I hoped that the mice would just, you know, go away.

But they didn't. I decided I would have to try to get rid of it myself. So I went out to buy a mousetrap.

There are many kinds of mousetraps. You can get the old-fashioned kind, like in Tom & Jerry, with the snapping wire. This will harm the mouse, but might not kill it, and then you have to dispose of a dead or a live-but-hurt mouse. Or you can get a glue trap, a big square covered with glue, which keeps the mouse glued to it, again, not killing it. Although I've heard stories about mice gnawing off limbs to escape. And then you have to dispose of a trapped live mouse who is going to die, or dispose of gnawed off limbs.

There are also box traps. These lure mice into them and then either kill them, or leave them unharmed to be set free outside the house.

I stood in the grocery store aisle weighing all the information, taking into account gnawed off limbs, dead mice in my drawers, etc. And I made my decision,

I purchased two traps and set them up that night, one on a drawer, one in a cabinet.

The next morning, before feeding the boys, I opened the drawer. I immediately started shouting, "OH my God! There's a mouse in the drawer! There's a mouse in the drawer!"

The boys, naturally flocked over to see the mouse.

"Well, " I explained, "you can't see it because it's in that box. At least I think it's in that box. Maybe the door shut all on it's own last night. Or maybe there's a mouse in there. Nate, pick up the trap and tell me if it's heavy and there's a mouse in there. No, don't shake it!"

"Is it dead?"

"I don't think so. It's supposed to be alive, and I have to set it free. We have to take it away from the house. Maybe we could drive...."

But we couldn't drive anywhere, because this was the morning of the big snowstorm, and there was a foot of snow in our driveway. Nor could I just let the mouse out at our doorstep, because it would just run back inside.

"I need to take the mouse to the bushes up near the street," I said.

"Can we come?"

"No."

I put on my tall yellow rain boots and my long winter coat over my pajamas. Then I realized the mousetrap was still on the counter, and my boots were leaving clumps of dirt on the floor.

"Andy, can you bring me that trap?"

Andy reached up and picked it up, but let it fall sideways. "Carry it straight, Honey, OK? There's a mouse in there."

Andy suddenly screamed, startled (maybe the mouse moved?), dropped the trap on the floor, and ran away, shouting and flapping his little arms. Nathan screamed "a mouse! a mouse!" and ran away from the trap, but the opposite way around the kitchen island from Andy, so that they both met halfway around and stood there, shouting and dancing on their toes. I stomped across the kitchen in my big yellow boots and winter getup to see the trap lying on the floor on the far side of the kitchen island. The door was still closed.

"Did the mouse run away?" I asked.

"No. We didn't SEE the mouse..."

I picked up the trap, very carefully. It seemed heavier than I remembered.

"Watch me from the window, OK?" I said. And I headed outside.

This is a good time to mention that Steve was away on a business trip. Or else he would have been appointed mouse-disposal duty.

The snow was very high at that point. I wasn't sure where to go, only that I didn't want to just dump the little thing out onto the snow, if it was, indeed, alive. Or even if it was dead. Because then I would have to stare at it's little frozen corpse, or else the boys would discover it when they came out to play and make a snowman. So I walked it over to the farthest corner of our front yard, next to some bushes. My reasoning was that, if it did indeed make it back to a house, at least it would have others to choose from instead of ours.

I turned the trap so the door faced down and opened the door. Nothing happened, and the door slipped shut. I opened it a second time and shook the trap a little. Again, nothing happened right away, and I wondered if it had just shut all on it's own after all - maybe the cat on the counter had set it off? Maybe I had just trudged through the snow with an empty plastic box? I was just about to flip the the trap and look inside it to confirm when the mouse jumped out.

It was a big fat mouse. Not huge, but a lot bigger than I had anticipated. I didn't get a great look because it ran right under the bush, and I was busy shouting and moving away as fast as I could.

And then I stomped back to the house and promptly set the trap up again. Steve said the thing will just make it's way back in, and that might be the case, but at least now I know how to get rid of it. And the next time I can drive it somewhere else. Like down the street.