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I took a little time away from the computer for the Fourth of July so I never got a chance to update on Pierre, the aggravating mouse. He finally met his bloody end on Saturday morning.
By this time, he was venturing into other rooms. As a result, the mousetraps stalked him about the house. On early Saturday morning I heard a loud snap in my daughter's room. A quick check revealed an upside-down mousetrap inside the basket. Because I didn't want my hyperactive four-year to accidentally - and literally - run across the mousetrap, I placed it inside a shallow basket. With very slick plastic walls. I then baited a trail with birdseed and sunflower seeds - they love those - to the basket and inside. He climbed the wicker outer shell, fell into the basket and snapped the trap. I win!
I got DH to check the trap because the only thing worse than a rodent is a bloody rodent. No rodent in the trap but his bloody remains had been launched to the other side of the basket. So DH disposed of the mouse. Despite his objections that we could clean it up (after all, it was "just a mouse"), I had him also dispose of the basket.
End result? Mom - 1 and Mouse - 0. Life is as it should be.
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Mom vs Mouse: Day Two
Here it is just past midnight and a few minutes into Saturday morning. My goal of posting daily has officially been shot down upon my second real post. Which brings me to Thursday's post about my furry friend Pierre - the house mouse squatter. It was only yesterday (it still feels like Thursday is yesterday so just bear with me) I battled with Pierre at 5 in the morning.
Two mousetraps, cheese and birdseed bait, and much frustration later it's been a two days since I have seen my furry friend. He disappeared sometime mid-morning on Thursday. All stayed quiet through the remainder of Thursday and most of today (Friday). Until a few minutes ago.
Yet again the little beast chooses to wait until I am stressed to my last nerve before popping around to let me know he's still stalking the household. I was mentally preparing today's blog about the stress of having a tween and teen, both girls, living in the same house. Between their typical drama (which reached heights exceeding the entire soap opera industry today), I dealt with a hyperactive pre-schooler that is too smart for my own good. It's probably fine for her own good, but I can foresee her dancing circles around me by the time she makes it to the teen years. Heaven help me now.
After surviving the two girls getting to the point of strangulation with one another, neither completing their daily chores, the pre-schooler finding a new obsession with balloons that go POW! when you pop them (this happening repeatedly), a husband who had a bad day, an aunt who broke her ankle, and the oldest stepson (OSS) dropping in at the last minute with his former girlfriend who is back as his girlfriend because she got pregnant with what they think is his daughter who also came and is adorable, and feeding all these crazy people a decent meal... I was ready for a long hot shower, a quick blog and good book. Not so fast.
Before I can say "hot water", my oldest stepdaughter (OSD) has a meltdown of Three-Mile Island proportions. Let's just say bad day at work for DH now equals bad evening at home for OSD. And more stress for me, because really, is anyone ever calm after the firestorm? Nah, didn't think so.
OSS then calls back. He's at his apartment that he shares part of the time with the girlfriend and their daughter but also apparently his mother (DH's EX) although she also lives part of the time a couple of cities away with her boyfriend that nobody claims is her boyfriend but is the same place that OSS lives when he's not living in our town with the girlfriend. Got that? Don't worry, I stay confused too.
So OSS was in the dark - literally. He said they had to catch up on the power but his mother didn't pay her part before she went to jail (she has more tales for titillating posts than this place has room) so now they are stuck with no power. Well, they could have power if they had the nearly $1000 it will take to turn it back on again. Don't even ask. He asked if he could come spend the night with us, since his girlfriend went to her parents' house to spend the night. One former bedroom, waiting and ready.
By that time, I am living the brief sanity a shower will bring because I dare DH to join me. He will get the pleasure of holding down peace in the Middle East while I take a shower, thank you very much. If I can do it for the 12 hours he is at work, he can do it for the 30 minutes it takes me to shower. Until, that is, Pierre makes an appearance. Everyone is getting settled down for the night, when pitter-pitter-pat his four little paws scurry across the floor of our living room and into DD's bedroom. I guess he fears a pre-schooler the least - oh little does he know. I think we've already established he's not the smartest mouse yesterday, but this was the final exclamation point of stupidity. It would have only been worse had he run towards the fire-breathing drama teen OSD.
So, mousetrap is now moved and placed in a place that is hopefully pre-schooler proof. Yeah right, in my dreams, and all that. It's freshly baited. It's got a trail of breadcrumbs (not too much, not too little but juuust right for little Goldimouse). I am waiting. And yet, I still watch my door carefully because I have this odd feeling he will manage to eat his little delights, avoid capture and come mock me yet again outside my door.
Have I mentioned how much I hate mice?
I hate cats, but I hate rodents more.
I think I need a cat.
Two mousetraps, cheese and birdseed bait, and much frustration later it's been a two days since I have seen my furry friend. He disappeared sometime mid-morning on Thursday. All stayed quiet through the remainder of Thursday and most of today (Friday). Until a few minutes ago.
Yet again the little beast chooses to wait until I am stressed to my last nerve before popping around to let me know he's still stalking the household. I was mentally preparing today's blog about the stress of having a tween and teen, both girls, living in the same house. Between their typical drama (which reached heights exceeding the entire soap opera industry today), I dealt with a hyperactive pre-schooler that is too smart for my own good. It's probably fine for her own good, but I can foresee her dancing circles around me by the time she makes it to the teen years. Heaven help me now.
After surviving the two girls getting to the point of strangulation with one another, neither completing their daily chores, the pre-schooler finding a new obsession with balloons that go POW! when you pop them (this happening repeatedly), a husband who had a bad day, an aunt who broke her ankle, and the oldest stepson (OSS) dropping in at the last minute with his former girlfriend who is back as his girlfriend because she got pregnant with what they think is his daughter who also came and is adorable, and feeding all these crazy people a decent meal... I was ready for a long hot shower, a quick blog and good book. Not so fast.
Before I can say "hot water", my oldest stepdaughter (OSD) has a meltdown of Three-Mile Island proportions. Let's just say bad day at work for DH now equals bad evening at home for OSD. And more stress for me, because really, is anyone ever calm after the firestorm? Nah, didn't think so.
OSS then calls back. He's at his apartment that he shares part of the time with the girlfriend and their daughter but also apparently his mother (DH's EX) although she also lives part of the time a couple of cities away with her boyfriend that nobody claims is her boyfriend but is the same place that OSS lives when he's not living in our town with the girlfriend. Got that? Don't worry, I stay confused too.
So OSS was in the dark - literally. He said they had to catch up on the power but his mother didn't pay her part before she went to jail (she has more tales for titillating posts than this place has room) so now they are stuck with no power. Well, they could have power if they had the nearly $1000 it will take to turn it back on again. Don't even ask. He asked if he could come spend the night with us, since his girlfriend went to her parents' house to spend the night. One former bedroom, waiting and ready.
By that time, I am living the brief sanity a shower will bring because I dare DH to join me. He will get the pleasure of holding down peace in the Middle East while I take a shower, thank you very much. If I can do it for the 12 hours he is at work, he can do it for the 30 minutes it takes me to shower. Until, that is, Pierre makes an appearance. Everyone is getting settled down for the night, when pitter-pitter-pat his four little paws scurry across the floor of our living room and into DD's bedroom. I guess he fears a pre-schooler the least - oh little does he know. I think we've already established he's not the smartest mouse yesterday, but this was the final exclamation point of stupidity. It would have only been worse had he run towards the fire-breathing drama teen OSD.
So, mousetrap is now moved and placed in a place that is hopefully pre-schooler proof. Yeah right, in my dreams, and all that. It's freshly baited. It's got a trail of breadcrumbs (not too much, not too little but juuust right for little Goldimouse). I am waiting. And yet, I still watch my door carefully because I have this odd feeling he will manage to eat his little delights, avoid capture and come mock me yet again outside my door.
Have I mentioned how much I hate mice?
I hate cats, but I hate rodents more.
I think I need a cat.
He's no Stuart Little...
So, I was awake almost all last night - it's been a stressful week and yesterday just capped it off with a bang. DH left for work around 5:00 AM, and as I was still awake I put on Hell's Kitchen
that I DVR'd recently. As I lay in bed, relaxing and about to go munch on some Doritos, I glanced toward the bedroom door that leads to the kitchen (yeah, yeah, idiotic layout). About that time, I see a furry nose - a tiny, brown, floor-level furry nose. It poked rather curiously around the corner, but disappeared before I could react. Well, other than to fly up to a sitting position. It was a house mouse - a field mouse until he apparently moved in with us.
The little nose poked around again, this time more boldly sashaying into the room as I instinctively tried to scare it. I barked - like a dog. (Hey, it was 5:30AM and I hadn't slept all night, okay?) He just waddles on in, cockily looking at me while he hugged close to the bookcase. Then disappeared - oh lovely. I suddenly thought "Wait! These guys are supposed to be timid. The old "more scared of you than you are of them", nocturnal, dark and quiet loving kind of creature." So, why was this little guy running toward the light, noise and big mean dog (that would be me, since I barked). Apparently, I have not only a house mouse, but a moronic house mouse.
At this point, I yelped. To my utter humiliation, I sounded like some helpless female from a bad romance novel.
What would a heroine do in those books? Well, definitely nothing heroic or brave - that's what her hero is for, right? So, I called up my local hero - that would be DH - for him to race to me in his chariot - that would be our ancient Toyota Camry. Being the 21st century and all, I paged him. My knight in shining armor (aka clueless husband) laughed at me. He said, get this, "It's just a mouse."
Just a mouse?
Excuse me?
That's what they said in the Dark Ages about those little rodents of death carrying bubonic plague. Rats - mice - all carries of the Black Death. Today, they are still germ-infested, probably rabies-carrying, filthy vermin. If that things bit me, my needle-phobic body would have to endure multiple shots over multiple weeks. Not. Gonna. Happen. I wouldn't even feel clean after a full Silkwood shower.
At this point I am weeping. I have a cheeky mouse, a DH lacking empathy, and a body that has at last reached critical mass from all the stress. So, while DH laughs at me, the mouse doesn't go hide. No, he has to peek, run and cheekily turn and moon me while he whips his tail into what I swear was a rude gesture. Dh didn't believe me, so I hung up on him and called my mother. She has empathy. She told me to name him so I would feel better. I immediately thought, "dirty. cheeky. rude. French. His name's Pierre." (No offense to the French, well, okay - I used to live in Europe and was married to a Brit, so yeah, I guess there is some offense there.) So, I named him "Pierre", the cocky, cheeky, stinky mouse with the "Screw you, you dirty Ameri-cain" attitude. He was no Stuart Little, and there was no way I was adopting him like a son.
In the end, my knight bailed on me to stay at work. After having a hearty laugh at my expense. He didn't help by speculating on how Pierre got in the house - apparently through our back door. We would have to have the Michael Jordan of mice, so I felt better. Until DH politely corrected me by saying mice can jump quite high. As well as climb walls, kind of like Spiderman. Thanks DH. I am thinking of changing that D to an A.
As it turned out, my father (my original knight in shining armor) came to my rescue with mouse traps, bait and even a pellet gun in hand. It was better than the ballpene hammer he originally got - I put that idea to rest rather quickly. The only thing worse than a live rodent running around spreading germs is a dead rodent lying around spreading blood and brains all over your wood floors. We set the traps, I hid them so I don't see them - no sense actually watching the death sentence carried out.
I'll update tomorrow on me versus the mouse. Hopefully the new score will be me-1 and mouse-0.
that I DVR'd recently. As I lay in bed, relaxing and about to go munch on some Doritos, I glanced toward the bedroom door that leads to the kitchen (yeah, yeah, idiotic layout). About that time, I see a furry nose - a tiny, brown, floor-level furry nose. It poked rather curiously around the corner, but disappeared before I could react. Well, other than to fly up to a sitting position. It was a house mouse - a field mouse until he apparently moved in with us.The little nose poked around again, this time more boldly sashaying into the room as I instinctively tried to scare it. I barked - like a dog. (Hey, it was 5:30AM and I hadn't slept all night, okay?) He just waddles on in, cockily looking at me while he hugged close to the bookcase. Then disappeared - oh lovely. I suddenly thought "Wait! These guys are supposed to be timid. The old "more scared of you than you are of them", nocturnal, dark and quiet loving kind of creature." So, why was this little guy running toward the light, noise and big mean dog (that would be me, since I barked). Apparently, I have not only a house mouse, but a moronic house mouse.
At this point, I yelped. To my utter humiliation, I sounded like some helpless female from a bad romance novel.
What would a heroine do in those books? Well, definitely nothing heroic or brave - that's what her hero is for, right? So, I called up my local hero - that would be DH - for him to race to me in his chariot - that would be our ancient Toyota Camry. Being the 21st century and all, I paged him. My knight in shining armor (aka clueless husband) laughed at me. He said, get this, "It's just a mouse."
Just a mouse?
Excuse me?
That's what they said in the Dark Ages about those little rodents of death carrying bubonic plague. Rats - mice - all carries of the Black Death. Today, they are still germ-infested, probably rabies-carrying, filthy vermin. If that things bit me, my needle-phobic body would have to endure multiple shots over multiple weeks. Not. Gonna. Happen. I wouldn't even feel clean after a full Silkwood shower.
At this point I am weeping. I have a cheeky mouse, a DH lacking empathy, and a body that has at last reached critical mass from all the stress. So, while DH laughs at me, the mouse doesn't go hide. No, he has to peek, run and cheekily turn and moon me while he whips his tail into what I swear was a rude gesture. Dh didn't believe me, so I hung up on him and called my mother. She has empathy. She told me to name him so I would feel better. I immediately thought, "dirty. cheeky. rude. French. His name's Pierre." (No offense to the French, well, okay - I used to live in Europe and was married to a Brit, so yeah, I guess there is some offense there.) So, I named him "Pierre", the cocky, cheeky, stinky mouse with the "Screw you, you dirty Ameri-cain" attitude. He was no Stuart Little, and there was no way I was adopting him like a son.
In the end, my knight bailed on me to stay at work. After having a hearty laugh at my expense. He didn't help by speculating on how Pierre got in the house - apparently through our back door. We would have to have the Michael Jordan of mice, so I felt better. Until DH politely corrected me by saying mice can jump quite high. As well as climb walls, kind of like Spiderman. Thanks DH. I am thinking of changing that D to an A.
As it turned out, my father (my original knight in shining armor) came to my rescue with mouse traps, bait and even a pellet gun in hand. It was better than the ballpene hammer he originally got - I put that idea to rest rather quickly. The only thing worse than a live rodent running around spreading germs is a dead rodent lying around spreading blood and brains all over your wood floors. We set the traps, I hid them so I don't see them - no sense actually watching the death sentence carried out.
I'll update tomorrow on me versus the mouse. Hopefully the new score will be me-1 and mouse-0.
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