everydayjill

I hate rodents. I now owe N a quarter (hate is a ‘bad’ word, and if the kids catch us saying a bad word, they get a quarter… I will give N fifty cents…) I hate rodents.
Came home on Friday, opened a drawer in the kitchen where I put keys, miscellaneous stuff that I use on a regular basis, and noticed something weird. Being somewhat fastidious, I decided to clean the dirt out of my formally clean drawer. Started taking my things out, vitamins, school stuff, business cards, Alleve, work stuff, and I noticed that this ‘dirt’ was everywhere. And it wasn’t dirt, it was mouse poo. BLECH.
The presence of mice makes me want to walk out the front door of a house, and start fresh without so much as a toothbrush from the tainted home, but that is not really an option, is it?
I proceeded to start taking everything out of every cabinet to check, and found no evidence ANYWHERE else of a mouse, which was reassuring. I was telling the kids this as they sat at the table eating a very crumby snack, when a dark thing scampered past my feet. A very plump, healthy-looking dark field mouse. Right past my feet, which made me shriek like someone in an I Love Lucy episode. A long, high-pitched embarrassingly girly shriek. Oh, how I hate rodents.
Got it cornered underneath a chair, as G is talking about how cute it is. She is jabbering on about catching it and taming it and teaching it party tricks, while I am thinking very dark, quarter-doling-out thoughts. Then all of a sudden, it dashed out and went straight for the vent at the bottom of my gas fireplace. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Can it leave the premises forever, or come back at will? Is it stuck in there, and if I turn on the fireplace, will I accidentally cook it? When I mentioned that it was healthy-looking to my mother, she helpfully said that it was probably a fat, pregnant little mama mouse. (Thanks, Mom.) Will it have a monstrously big family in my gas fireplace?
I am off to Home Depot to get weatherstripping and MORE mousetraps, although I honestly have not seen any more evidence of nasty creatures.
G helpfully pointed out that it is funny that I am so clean, and can get a mouse, while Daddy is not-so-clean in housekeeping, and doesn’t have any mice. Yes, very funny , very funny. I hate rodents, and I now owe N a whopping seventy-five cents. A dollar, because… I HATE RODENTS.