So there we were.....mouse vs. woman. Me wishing at the moment that I had a husband for moments like this. It wishing the sides of my tub were not so sloped and slick with water. After a few moments of gazing into each other's eyes, I finally ran to get the cat. I was quick about it, as I didn't want it escaping. I was in such a hurry, I hadn't turned off the shower yet, so my cat wanted to be nowhere near the bathroom. He took off. I stood there watching its twitching whiskers wondering what to do next. I didn't know, so I ran to get my camera. If nothing else, I was going to get a picture of this rodent. When in doubt, snap a picture. We sat staring for awhile longer. I decided to try the cat again. Dag nab it....that cat needs to earn his keep around here! This time, I plopped him on the ledge and he finally noticed the mouse.....as it scurried back down the drain! Now what to do? It was time to call for reinforcements. You just never know what your friends are going to need you for. I'm sure this was Niki's first time aiding and abetting a mouse hunt (by phone anyway). We were on the phone quite awhile, debating what to do. On the one hand, I didn't want to be cruel and drown it, because I felt sorry for the poor thing (plus I didn't want a dead mouse in the drain stinking up the house). On the other hand, I was trying to imagine sponge baths and washing my hair under the sink for the next week or so. Something had to be done. Finally Niki consulted the resident varmint patrol for the Nowell family. He wisely suggested that the mouse would get flushed out of the drain if I ran water down there. So I tried that. I then plugged the drain, took my shower in standing water, and plugged it again. That mouse has either been flushed out or he's really good at holding his breath and is just waiting for his next opportunity for freedom.
It's a good thing the girls and I didn't go see "Flushed Away" the other day. I would probably just feel more guilty about the mouse-acide I had to commit tonight. As Niki said, since the mouse was wet, it would have frozen to death if I'd caught and released it. I think death by drowning is much more humane. And if the cat method had worked, he would have toyed with that poor mouse for awhile before snacking on him little by little, so I actually did that mouse a favor.
Well if nothing else, when you consider that cardio exercise is sometimes defined as getting into your target heart rate for a certain amount of time, I certainly got some tonight. Do you think it would look funny if I logged 15 minutes of mouse hunting as my cardio?
I think I'm finally calmed down enough to go to bed. Like I told Niki, at least it wasn't a rat, a tarantula, or heaven forbid, a snake. Which reminds me of my rattlesnake story. I'll have to share that one later. Sweet dreams. I'm sure mine will be filled with varmints with a penchant for playing hide and seek in my plumbing.
6 comments:
When I was young, we had little mice running all over our really old little house. My brother once met one in the living room. They both (brother and mouse) jumped at the same time, and turned and ran away from each other. Funniest moment in my family memory.
There are worse spiders to find... Brown Recluse, or Black Widow. You did get a good picture of the critter.
And we thought we had covered every subject under the sun! :)
Glad I could lend moral support!
He was cute in a gross sort of way. I think it's hilarious you thought to take a picture - you truly are obsessed. We can scrap that while I'm there in a few weeks! Do you think Michael's has paper with mousetraps on it? Or maybe swiss cheese...or plumbing pipes...LOL!
Chelf: True those other spiders may be more dangerous, but I don't think they'd freeze me in my tracks like a tarantula. That's one you just don't want to even think about squishing under foot. (I just gave myself the heebie jeebies with that thought)!
Niki: I don't think I'm that obsessed; he's not going to get his own album or anything. No he probably won't even make it into the scrapbook unless someday I do one on weird animal encounters or something.
Speaking of Tarantulas, I have a story that occurred back in about 1972. I had a veterinary clinic in which one of my employees brought in a Tarantula they found in the southwest somewhere. It was in a large peanut butter jar, so we set it on top of one of the counters for people to see. One day the clinic cat got very curious while we were not paying much attention and took a swipe at the jar and knocked it in the floor and the spider disappeared. We knew it was in the clinic but we could not see it anywhere. So we all cautiously went about our daily business, afraid it would jump out at any moment onto someone. After a few days I went into the clinic at night and when I turned on the light the Trantula was in the middle of the floor. I was able to find a bucket to quickly drop over the spider then had to figure out a way to get him out from under the bucket. I don't remember exactly how we did finally get him out without hurting him, but somehow we did.
Old Vet
"Old vet": Yuck!.....glad i was too young to know what was going on. I wouldn't have stepped foot in there. Ignorance is bliss I guess. Good thing it decided not to alight on a persnickety customer!
That's why I have a rule about no reptiles with my tenant upstairs. No way do I want one of those loose in the house.
BTW, you're not THAT old!
Tawnya, that was the cutest picture of that little nasty thing. :) Almost made me reconsider my loathing of all things rodent.
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