Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Mousings?

Since moving into my 1930s house two and half years ago I feel like I've had more mouse experiences than most home owners.  I grew up in an old house so it's nothing that's foreign, but it's occasionally annoying.
Somehow I've managed to blog about mice on Day One and several times since then.  It's getting a little out of hand.

I think the latest in what will surely become a anthology of mouse tales (possible title: Mouse Musings?  Mousings?) is what happened the other day.  I came home to that unsettling scent that makes you think, "Yep, something has definitely died in here."  Sadly, after this much experience, I knew exactly where to look - the bottom cupboard that inexplicably contains an electrical outlet half hanging out of the wall.  What could someone possibly want to plug in inside a bottom cupboard?

Sure enough, there was the origin of the smell.  A stupid mouse had tried to crawl through the hole that holds the outlet with the exposed wires through which a previous even more stupid mouse had chewed.  Does that sentence make sense?  Well, this picture will help:


The gross part was that his eyes were still open and only his face was peeking through the hole.  It took most of the morning to get the courage up to try and grab it with some tongs, but everytime I got close, the thought of clamping onto those big, wet, eyeballs was too much and I dry heaved.  So I just avoided that part of the house and racked my brain for solutions other than pulling him out.  Moving was a serious contender.

Two days of this was more than enough and I had to admit to myself that it was time to call in the Big Guns.  I hate to be that prissy girl, but there was something so revolting about this task that I called in my surrogate boyfriend.  Tracy.  Friend since elementary school and obviously much tougher than I.   She once got into a fight in fifth grade - a real one, not the kinds that I engaged in where we passed mean notes about each other.  She also got suspended in fifth grade for trying smoking with the cool kids.  In hindsight, fifth grade was her badass coming out party.

Black Jetta instead of a white horse, she arrived to my rescue and although we had to move the stove, the cupboard and I have to buy new tongs, she did the deed.

Surely, this won't be the last mouse story I tell, but perhaps I can play the victor in the next one.


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