The Mouse And The Monster

I've been having a mouse problem in my home lately. I discovered it one evening when I noticed Monster sitting kind of oddly, staring into a corner of the living room, seemingly doing nothing. So I went over to see if he'd finally gone round the bend completely, and as I approach I see a small dark shadow scuttle off along the wall, with a little fffffrrrrrrttt pitter-patter of horrible little paws... A mouse! And it was under my couch! Monster seemed mildly concerned that his new little friend had run off, but soon forgot about it - while I was sitting on a chair with my feet up, all lamps on, more or less waiting for dawn so I could manage to start cleaning!

I don't get it... What's the problem?

About an hour later, the little horror comes back out from under the couch and races back toward the corner where Monster first discovered it. Monster gets up (alerted by my gasp for air) and follows it, startling it and making it stop halfway. At this point I'm half horrified at the thought of a mouse slaughter in my living room, and half delighted - yay, Monster's prey drive finally turns out to be useful for something! But no. Once he'd "caught" it, he just sat down about a foot away and started staring at it again... Eventually I get up and try to figure something to catch the thing in, but when I move the mouse finds its legs again and scuttles off. Whereupon Monster turns to me with this reproachful look, like "Look what you did!"

Well, seriously...

Next day I went out and bought mouse traps, baited them with everything (cat food, smoked turkey, cheese, chocolate, apple, sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and some sort of synthetic bait goop), and put them down in every room, five of them in the living room, and put some in the basement too. And the mice? Ignored them completely. A couple of days later another mouse (or the same one?) scuttled through the living room again and back under the couch - aaaaauuugh! On its way it must have passed about seven different traps, depending on where it got in, and none of them even tempted it.

But! Today, as I'm checking on the oven, I hear some rustling from under the sink... I quickly yank open the door, terrified - with no idea of what I'm going to do if there really is a mouse there! At first I don't see one, but as I'm standing there looking, the rustling starts up again, and I can pinpoint it to an empty pot scrubber bag that's fallen down between two containers. In it: The Mouse! The rustling is coming from it trying to get back up the slippery plastic, and not quite making it. I stand there staring at it for a while, wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do, but eventually I realize I have to get it out of there - I can hardly leave it to starve to death under my sink, and I certainly don't want it to manage to get free eventually! So, displaying great bravery (anyone claiming it took me about five minutes, with me yanking my hand back every time the mouse moved, would be lying - lying, I tell you), I reach in and carefully pinch the plastic closed and then lift the thing out. But then what? I can't kill it - using traps is frankly almost too much for me, if it wasn't for the hygiene issue I could never have managed even that - but I also can't let it go. As I'm standing there Monster comes over, curious about what I'm doing and why I'm holding something out as far away from me as I can. He looks at the mouse through the clear plastic and goes to sniff it, making the mouse rustle around again - and Monster panics, racing away from the scary thing, body low and claws scrabbling to find traction on the floor!

What?!? You should have seen the teeth on that thing!

Monster's fear managed to breathe some courage into me, so I maneuver myself into shoes and a jacket - still carefully holding the bag closed - and drive about a mile off to set the mouse free. Terrified the whole time that I'd manage to drop it and it would get loose in my car! But all goes well, and the mouse is now - hopefully - far, far away. I'm aware you shouldn't release them, as they supposedly just return, but this one will have to cross a couple of roads and (more importantly) pass about 15 cats to get to my house. Hopefully we're safe! But before I left for my heroic quest, I managed to document the event. So, here's the scary, scary beast:

Eeeeeek!