Mouse Chronicles

The tight budget of this year’s life style has made this winter that much harder. The thermostat is set at a very low temperature keeping the house at the equivalent temperature of a cave. So, when I first saw a mouse scurry across the kitchen floor one afternoon in November, I wondered why in the world he chose our house out of all the houses on the street.

For the majority of November and most of December, I saw very little of him. I assumed he stayed close to the food source whether in my house or the neighbors with whom I shared wall on either side. My lack of attention to him seemed to give him permission to become bolder and more adventurous as one morning I was awakened by the rattling of my trash bag in my room. Naturally I snapped up in my bed. My surprised response caused him to jump out of the plastic bag on the floor and proceed to scurry to the closed door and flatten himself into nothing as he disappear beyond it.

This was the beginning of a long line of encounters with this little guy. I would lie in bed and here his tail hit the radiator as he scurried underneath it. From the comfort of my layers of warm blankets I would grab a dowel rod and start to tap the radiator to scare him away. Was I generating that much heat that he always wanted to be in my room at night? What on earth was in my room that he could possibly want?

One night, I was lying in bed with my head buried under the covers. For a while now I had been sleeping on an air mattress on the floor and often felt like I was camping. The sound of a nearby creature encroaching on my space made it feel like camping even more, and I was beginning to loose my sleep and sanity. I heard the rattling of plastic again. I looked to the door where I had hung the plastic trash bag. But that didn’t make sense. The sound was closer than that and how could he even get himself in there? More rustling. I whipped out the dowel rod and started hitting the floor around my bed. I waited. Again the noise came and it seemed to be right next to my head.

At this point I couldn’t stand it. I whipped back the covers and dramatically sat up. In an instant I heard the little scurry of feet and the ping of the tail along the radiator.

The next day I investigated. I searched for the cause of my sleepless nights and discovered that I was to blame. Next to my bed, hidden under the corner of my pillow was an empty popcorn bag I had left folded on itself. One corner was cleverly chewed spilling out the small crumbs I discarded. Who new that popcorn was part of the mouse palette? I assumed it was just cheese and peanut butter.

The popcorn episode pushed me to get a trap. I couldn’t bring myself to get one of he wooden ones. I had too many memories of previous mouse-catching experiences gone wrong as the trap only caught the tail or the noise of the mouse thrashing back and forth as it tried to escape. Instead a kind co-worker who was completely filled in on my mouse saga offered to let me try one the mousetraps he had at home. This model lured the mouse into a small compartment that had a spring-loaded door that pinned the mouse inside when triggered.

Why not give it a try? I have to admit I had little hope. After a few more episodes of rattling wrappers in other parts of the house the following episode happened while I was texting my housemate in the living room downstairs. The following conversation is not edited or fabricated in anyway.  The several typos bear witness to my haste in typing and surge of excitement.