Of Mice and Trashcans...

What I am about to tell you is a harrowing tale of mischief, mayhem, and lots and lots of bleach. 

On Sunday evening I heard some strange noises coming from my stove.  I was using the crockpot that day, so there was no reason for the oven to be making that popping sound it sometimes makes as it's cooling off.  After some investigation which involved the highly techinical method of standing and listening, I dismissed it as nothing and went on about my business.  On Monday, the same thing happened once or twice but I told myself I was just hearing things.

Yesterday [Tuesday] after breakfast I heard some rustling around and knew that some thing  was in my kitchen, I just didn't know what.  After a quick glance around my eyes landed on the place where I had prepared my oatmeal.  There were blueberries strewn about and the leftover oatmeal was still in the pot because I'm lazy that way.  Suddenly I saw it: mouse poop.  There were at least 25 little pellets of poo on top of my flour countainers and all over the counter.  It was NOT there when I made my breakfast [at least, I'm telling myself that I would have noticed it].  Furthermore, how much can one mouse poop?

Naturally, I sent an alarming text message to my heroic husband stating that a rodent had indeed taken up residence in our tiny galley-style kitchen.  By the time he got home I had already stripped the appliances off the countertops and bleached everything.  The disgusting creature had gnawed on sweet potatoes, dragged a cherry tomato behind my cookbook stand and eaten half of it, and done a number on my organic pink lady apples for which I had just paid $7.50.  I think I had to throw away $15 worth of produce thanks to that Ratatouille wannabe. 

My smart and savvy husband put on his Bear Grylls persona and went out into the wilderness that is Wal-Mart and returned with mouse traps.  Ah, my hero.  Except I really did not want to wake up to a half-dead mouse dragging itself across the linoleum with a mousetrap attached to its ankle. 

Fast-foward to dinner time [9pm at our house, it seems].  Here's where it gets good.

I was standing at the stove and my husband was to my left, washing his hands at the sink.  Suddenly he began to scream.  I asked him what was wrong but he kept screaming so then I decided to scream.  He pointed to the counter that was between us and there was the little mouse who was probably also screaming.  I did the only thing I could which was to run across the house into the laundry room.  The dog followed.  My husband asked me what we should do, all the while thinking that he could just cut its head off with his chef's knife.  Thank goodness he decided against that.  He realized we couldn't replace said knife and truly, he hasn't got it in him to kill anything more than a spider. 

Back to the mouse.  While I was hiding in the laundry room and Justin was deciding against decapitation [all of about 3 seconds] the mouse scurried across the countertops and sailed off the edge and into the open trashcan.  What luck!

At this point, I'd started to have mild contractions and was imagining telling my poor daughter the events that led up to her early arrival.

Thank goodness we didn't have to kill it.  Justin tied up the trashbag and walked it across the street to the opposite edge of the field where he released the mouse out into the wild.

I like to think that's exactly what Jesus would have done.

And thank goodness I didn't have to clean up any mouse guts this morning.  On another note, my kitchen is so very clean.  One more thing to check off my "things to do before baby" list.