My Least Favorite Indication That Winter Is Coming

Rachael and I just spent half an hour chasing a mouse through four rooms of my house before finally trapping it under a bowl. As I speak (or type), it is sitting across the room from me giving me the heebie jeebies from beneath its mixing-bowl-sized jail cell. For any of you who may not be aware of how I feel about mice, feel free to get inside my head here. I think our biggest weakness during this escapade was our tendency to flinch or give off a girly shriek every time we caught sight of the nasty little thing. My toes are still curled under and if you don't think it hurts to walk when one's toes are curled under, check in with any poor Chinese girl who has had her feet bound. But seriously, YUCK!!!!!

But I must admit that anyone walking in on us during our little adventure probably would have laughed their heads off. We were both crouched down like football players preparing for the hike, too afraid to get on the floor, holding mixing bowls with a death grip. Furniture was moved and items were thrown all over to get them out of the path of the rodent. At one point we had books, boxes, a folding table, the ironing board and the pack and play barricading off three sides of my bed in an attempt to trap it on the other side.

(an hour and a half goes by . . .)

Okay, once was bad enough, but TWICE is completely unacceptable! Even as I blogged, I caught sight of another mouse. This one was eventually trapped inside a tube of brown paper, one end pressed against the wall, the other end pressed against the bottom of a mixing bowl. Unfortunately for me, I was kneeling there with the bowl pressed up against the tube with enough tension to keep the other end flush against the wall and no way to keep it there. And then I started to hear the mouse scrabbling around in there. Augh! Bless Rachael for holding the bowl while I got the fire safe to prop the whole contraption into place.

This is why God invented exterminators.