R.I.P.

Remember my post about how not a creature was stirring....except a mouse?

Well here's an update on that.

Dad came over on December 22nd and set a trap under my kitchen sink,which was where I'd seen the "gifts" left by said mouse. I've opened that cabinet door every day since (only to retrieve cat food) with great trepidation. Well, most of the days, I felt the trepidation. After a while, I became accustomed to the trap and its hard little piece of cheese.

Yesterday morning, I opened the cabinet door, saw that stupid trap and the stupid cheese and thought, You know, I should have Dad come over and replace the cheese. I pulled out the then-empty cat food bag, threw it away, and pulled the new bag forward, gritting my teeth at the hole chewed in the corner of it already.

Last night I took out the trash, and when I came back inside, I opened the other side of the cabinet door to find a new trash bag. I glanced at the trap and noticed it had moved - and the cheese was gone.

Are you KIDDING me? Lo, these many days later and that stupid mouse took the hard cheese and didn't even have the audacity to die?

I called my Dad to complain about the lousy trap. He said, "Well, It's a smart mouse." I said, "Or a dumb trap." He laughed at me. Then he gave the phone to Mom.

She asked me a question and I said, "Well, let me get the flashlight and look." I opened the cabinet door, aimed that flashlight...and behold...two beady eyes staring back at me from the trap.

Y'all...the mouse was in the trap. It's a black trap. Under the sink. I didn't see the mouse.

I screamed (and by that, I mean that was the noise heard throughout the greater midwest region last night), slammed the cabinet door, and went sprinting through the house, scaring the cats and probably most of my block.

Mom and Dad were laughing away at me...could hear that between screams. I ran to the chair where Braeya so serenely slept, and informed her the approximately eight pieces of food in her bowl would need to be carefully rationed with her brother until her Grandpa could come over and rid this premises of that stupid mouse. What did she do? She stretched, walked to the bowl, and started chowing down.

No respect.

Realizing the food bowl would HAVE to be refilled, I donned my winter coat and two pairs of winter gloves...and with great whooping, hollering and flat out bloody-murder-screaming...I opened the cabinet, dumped out two huge cupfuls of food, and slammed the cabinet shut again. I told Mom I'm like the kid getting a shot who starts screaming at the very sight of the needle.

I slept with the coat on. I have no idea what that was supposed to accomplish, but it made me feel better with that blessed mouse corpse defiling my home.

My precious Dad, who is much nicer to me than he should be, drover over today and gave that mouse a funeral. (ACTUALLY he told me he put it down my garbage disposal, and it was all I could do to not have a shrieking fest right there at work at that announcement. But he was kidding. I hope.) He told me he reset the trap, and I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, knowing I was safe again.

And then I came home.

I opened the cabinet door just to check on the placement of the trap and the size of the cheese sample.

Mouse number two dead in the trap.

THREE HOURS, people. THREE HOURS and no bait! He set an empty trap!

R.I.P., Mr. and Mrs. Mouse. Once I know you did not procreate in my humble abode, I (hopefully) will find a measure of peace myself.

** Please note....the latest casualty is lying in state under my sink. My very brave secretary said she can empty mouse traps. Let's hope she wasn't kidding. **