M-I-C K-E-Y...

M-O-U-S-E!!!

Okay, friends n' neighbors, it looks like three, count 'em, three of Mickey's little cousins have made it into our fair abode. Again. Melly, the wonder mouser, has managed to dispatch all three of them for us. Adding to the body count:

#7: Discovered 'round midnight, when we were both awakened by Melly growling. In our bedroom. Kat, using her super-sensitive Mom ears, leaped out of the bed and snapped on the light. There, by the desk, was Melly, with a very small, very dead mouse in her mouth. All our jumping around must have startled her, because she dropped the prize and scooted under the bed. Not thinking of the 643 different horrible diseases one can get from rodents (642 of which I have learned about since taking in several of the vermin and bottle-feeding them last fall), I picked the thing up by its scrawny little tail, and lumbered into the bathroom, Katrina giving me a wide berth the entire way.
Cause of death: A) gnawed on by Melly
B) probable heart failure (see "A" above)
Ultimate disposition: sent to sleep with the fishes. Really. Flushed that sucker to the Vancouver Water Resources Center (sewage treatment plant to you).

#8: Discovered being chased around by Melly and Pickett in the living room. Cats were playing an abbreviated version of "beat the crap out of the mouse."
Cause of death: subject is still alive, unless a hawk got it
Ultimate disposition: kept under a plastic bowl until my mother-in-law could come down to the house to bring Katrina the lid for said bowl, whereupon both women managed to scooch the lid under the bowl and trap the little dude inside. He was taken to an open field nearby (but not too nearby).

#9: So two nights ago, I'd been having a hard time getting to sleep. I had a lot of work to finish (entering grades is now an online task), and I was bleary-eyed from staring at my monitor for three hours. I'd only been asleep for about 45 minutes when I heard Katrina scream my name from another part of the house.
Now, you have to understand, Katrina was raised by my mother-in-law, a woman who, among all the wonderful qualities she had to pass on to her daughter (beauty, intellect, perseverence), she also passed on her penchant for being a light sleeper. Said another way, Katrina will awaken at the literal drop of a hat (or the stubbing of her husband's toe against the bedpost trying to make his way across a darkened bedroom), and, trust me on this one, it's not pretty when it happens.
All this to say, she takes people's sleep time very, very seriously. If the kids are sleeping, there's not to be any noise whatsoever (even though Emily and Nikki could both sleep through an even worse home demolition than occurred in Chris Van Allsburg's Zathura). For her to scream my name meant one of four things:
1) The house was on fire.
2) The planet was on fire.
3) She was on fire.
4) There was another freakin' mouse in our home.

(Psst! Vote for number 4! It's a winner for sure!)

Yeah. Melly had yet another mouse, and was attempting to bring her kill to her dad (moi) to show off. Katrina yelled because she needed me to head off the kitty at the pass, er, the staircase.

Now, I've been jolted awake again. I flew down the stairs, taking two at a time, freaking the snot out of Melly, who dropped this mouse, too. Kat had already grabbed the contaminated plastic bowl and was making ready to encapsulate the little rodent. I snatched the bowl from her and slammed it down on the carpet, over the inert body of mouse #3 of 2006.

When I went to move the bowl, the mouse moved, too - only in the opposite direction. Great, I thought. A live one. No hanging with the Ti-D-Bowl man for this one.

I slid the lid under the bowl, trapping my charge inside. Still half asleep, I went out to the van barefoot and drove to the empty field. Parking the van on the side of the road, I got out into the deluge of rain, walked to the edge of the sidewalk, took off the lid, and dumped the little guy on the ground.

He just sat there.

I nudged him with the edge of the bowl.

Still.

I nudged him again.

Nothing.

Now, in my mind as I was making an illegal u-turn across Mill Plain Boulevard was the fantasy that the little dude was just stunned, and would soon awaken and scurry off into the underbrush.

I believe now I am mistaken. The mousic karma is gonna get me for this one, too.

I think I... suffocated it. Inside the plastic bowl. Yikes. What a way to go.



Gotta beat being chewed on my Melly, though, I reckon.


Certainly beats being crushed in a dude's waistband, for sure.