Saturday, November 11, 2006

The Mouse, he left our house

"The Mouse, he left our house.
No Mouse today, he's gone away.
To ease the pain, he's down the drain!"

Well, ok, he's not. And btw, if you can identify the above quote, I'll give you free dead mice in the mail.

Anyway, I'm sick. I caught the flu. It moved from my throat to my sinuses to my bronchial tubes. I did the fever thing. Now I'm doing the bronchial cough/exhaustion thing.

And my husband is sick. Because it wasn't enough for it to go through my body, it had to leap to his body too.

I stayed home from work this week. My husband had to fly up north and work, and sleep in a hotel room every night. :P He realized he had it about midway in his first workday up north. He's now home, after 5 hellish days for him, and very happily glued to the couch.

We have 2 big German Shepherds. Do they scare rodents away? Hell no. Do they care if we have a rodent? Not even. Do they help with killing rodents? Nope.

They have a strong prey drive. But nothing of that came out to help in this instance.

So this past Wednesday, I'm home sick, right? Coughing up a lung. And I open the doors to the cabinets to find something to eat. Hoping there's some soup I didn't realize was down there. Oooh. Look at all the little poo-like objects down there. Uh-huh.

I pulled out 2 mouse traps, and set them both. This was a major challenge for me because mouse traps scare me. Well, loud sudden noises scare me. It took me a while to get used to gunfire when my Dad taught me how to fire a gun. Little kids running around with balloons is like torture, because I know eventually they are going to pop something.

But I was sick. And something about feeling like crap made setting traps not a big deal. Just bloody had to be done.

I dropped one on the floor to hear it snap, to desensitize me. Then I proceeded to mess up and snap it on my fingers. Twice. Well, I was pretty damned well desensitized by it by then, LOL! I placed two traps Wednesday afternoon, and by Wednesday evening, we have the following:



And my first response, instead of "what a filthy, disgusting, disease ridden creature", was "oh, that poor cute little thing... and it's in pain..." Yeah, I know. I've lost it. But take another look:



So I've got this mouse. And it's still alive. And suffering. *sigh* I take pics of it, and send them to my husband. We talk over the phone. He tells me I can clock it with a shovel. Uh-huh.

I gave in and put it in a ziplock plastic baggy. I picked it up with the plastic baggy turned inside out to use as a fingerless glove. Works great. Thanks to all the lessons from picking up dog poop. ;)

Here's another picture of the cute poor little mouse:



So I picked up Mr. Mouse, and put him (or her?) on the kitchen floor, inside the plastic baggy. And then I beaned it with the handle of my husband's foot-long black flashlight.

Yes. This mouse. Down here. Beaned it. No pics of the beaning, though. Sorry. I'm not quite that twisted.



So I've been washing dishes (and coughing up a lung) ever since. The cleaned pots and pans (that the mouse ran over and in many cases, poo'd in) are all piled up on the kitchen table. Most of them... not quite done. Moving kinda slow while coughing up a lung.

Once the dishes are fully removed, I can nuke the kitchen cabinets. 'Er, I mean clean them with lysol, pinesol, or clorox. Not sure which to use. Maybe all 3.

Wish me luck.

6 comments:

Kenya Starflight said...

What an adventure. Sorry the rodent caused you so much trouble. Especially when you weren't feeling good to begin with. :P

Can't identify the quote, which is okay because I really don't need a dead mouse... (Though our cat would thank you profusely...)

MTFBWY

Bill C said...

I hate vermin and dealing with same. I have no trouble placing traps and disposing of remains. But I'm with you on the not-yet-dead; definitely a more complicated issue.

Though I wonder if you'd have had an easier time "dispatching" if you'd waited until after all the cleaning and nuke-work; might have provided some motivation.

Sith Snoopy said...

Kenya: I can understand the aversion to dead mice. And if I catch another one, in spite of the fact that your cat would be overjoyed, I will refrain from sending you any.

Radioactive Jam: I'm not done cleaning. By now the mouse would have simply died of internal injuries. But you're right... the more I clean, the easier it would be to kill the thing. :)

K'ru: You emailed me the solution to the quote. And you are correct! It's from the movie Ladyhawke. From the very beginning, just before Matthew Broderick, aka "the Mouse, Philipe Gaston", escapes from the dungeons of Aquila. One of his fellow prisoners says it to the jailer when the jailer can't find "the Mouse".

Anonymous said...

Read this blog a lot, finally got myself an account so i can comment:)
Sorry to hear you have flu, seems to be going around everywhere.
I usually get the vermin left on the doormat - if those mice come back again, i'd be happy to send you my cat.She's like the terminator when it comes to them.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I stumbled across your blog from August 29th last year, about your friend who died in a motorcycle accident and I think I may be his sister...the coincidences are too strong to not be him....

Just wanted you to know that your site kinda helped me a bit with a rough day....nice to know that there are people out there who kinda knew him who were still affected by his death...it's been a long rough year, but slowly we are moving on...his wife and child are okay, good days and bad days...but we are a strong family and that's what gets us thru all this....

As for the religious aspect of your blog, if this is my brother, I know that sometimes he came across as not giving a shit, but in reality he was one of the most spiritual people I know...I am more than certain that he is up there flying unassisted, as he always dreamed of when he was hang gliding, with the angels....

Thanks for your blog, it touched my heart....the big sister!!

Cheeseburger Brown said...

Dear Darth Snoopy,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Love,
Cheeseburger Brown