The Mouse

Okay...this mouse is killing me. And I'm praying it's mouse and not mice.

I've always hated mice. I'm not really that scared of them because I know they can't actually hurt me. It's just the idea of a smelly, furry, rodent sneaking around my house, hiding in unexpected places that bothers me. I have been tortured by many a mouse in my day. Mentally tortured. To the point of sleeping with my head, arms, feet, completely under the covers, sweating, because I envisioned the mouse crawling across me at night. I'll never forget when I was young one winter, we had been finding mice in our house. I started fearing that a mouse would get in my bed while I slept. My parents assured me this couldn't happen. But, then a few days later I found mouse droppings on my windowsill, right by my bed. That's when I started sleeping completely under cover. And practically suffocating. I was so disturbed by the thought of the mouse crawling around my room that I wouldn't sit on my floor or place anything of importance on my floor because I knew a mouse had been crawling there. I even thought I could smell him. Seriously. This went on for awhile. You don't know how much sleep I lost. Maybe the disturbing thing was how horribly disturbed I was by the mice.

Well, I would like to say that now that I am an adult, I have grown up when it comes to mice. And I actually thought that I had. That is, until we got a visit from a mouse. Saturday morning, Carl spotted him racing across the carpet in our TV room. That's when my world came tumbling down. My nice, clean house...infested. Sure, our house isn't that clean. I'm sure our floors our covered in baby spit up and human waste (from babies) but it least it's our mess...not the mess of an univited guest. I spent Saturday watching every step I took fearing I might see the mouse.

I made it through the day okay, but night time was a different story. I know it's irrational, but I'm not the most rational person. I placed all nine of our throw pillows on top of our dresser, instead of the usual messy pile on the floor. And I'm not crazy. I failed to mention that after seeing the mouse on Saturday, I was putting fresh sheets on our bed. After getting the sheets on, I pulled the comforter back on...only to see a black speck attached to it. A speck which I am 99.9% sure was a mouse pellet. See, I just knew they crawl on me in my sleep. I had an awful time falling asleep at bedtime. I'm almost positive I heard the mouse rustling in our room. Then, when Keaton woke up in the middle of the night, I climbed out of bed and am almost certain I felt the mouse brush against my foot. I screamed and turned on the light and I'm pretty sure gave my husband one more reason to think I'm crazy.

So, tonight we stopped in Wal-Mart to get some ammunition for this problem. We stuck a sticky trap behind our fridge (when I say "we", I mean Carl...when it comes to mice I am completely hands-off) I had to work hard to convince Carl to buy sticky traps instead of the regular kind. His argument was that you have to keep buying more sticky traps because you only use them once. My argument was if he thinks I'm going to allow him to keep used and bloody mouse traps somewhere in my house, he's crazy.

So, we finally got the kids in bed and were sitting in the living room watching TV. Suddenly I heard the familiar rustling sound that I heard the night before. See I just knew it was a mouse last night. Then, we heard the squealing. Squealing and squealing, and more squealing. Very disturbing. The mouse was caught. I had wanted nothing more than for that mouse to die. But, I must say the squealing, suffering mouse made me feel a little bad. It probably wouldn't have been so bad except that Carl refused to do anything with it right then because it wasn't dead yet. He must not have understood how it was killing me inside to have a dying mouse behind our fridge. So gross. So, we watched the remainer of our show amidst the random rustling sound and moaning of a caught mouse, trying to free himself.

Seeing how we live in the country, I'm afraid I'm going to live a tortured life, if I don't get this issue of mine under control. Oh, and I failed to mention that I found mouse droppings in Keaton's book basket by his crib. Let's just say he didn't get a story tonight. Even my sweet little baby isn't safe.