We have a mouse. He (she?) is small and brown. We first met him last Friday morning when my husband went to get milk for Primus. He gave a yowp of frustration, and tried to catch it then, unsuccessfully. As we worked out the details of the day, I decided to drive my husband in to work. All I really wanted to do that morning was pull the covers over my head and just hope it went away.
I remember having mice at our house in New Hampshire. I remember my mom and her friend just dealing with it. I wanted to be brave and strong like my mom, but didn't feel it. Then I decided that she probably didn't want to deal with it either, but she did, and that was what was important. I called my mom to tell her about our mouse, and my suspicions that she didn't like having mice either, but dealt with them. She replied that mice were no big deal.
This was not the answer I wanted. I wanted to be praised for dealing with it, despite wanting to hide, not be told my problem was little. I would have told her this, so I could get the encouragement I wanted, but we had a bad connection, and she was at the airport. (To my mom's defense, she would NEVER tell me my problem was little. It was the impressions of the day and the awkward situation. She thinks I'm brave. I'm fine.) So I let her get back to her life, and I got back to mine. My life that day involved a lot of cleaning.
We think he came in (lives?) behind the stove. Because I had more cleaning to do than could properly be handled with a toddler and an infant, I called up my good friend on Friday who came over and played with my child while I cleaned and cleaned the kitchen. (It's possible the source of the extensive amount of time needed to clean up was because we hadn't done this dishes the night before. This may have been a semi-regular occasion. It surely is no more.) Now all the counters are clean, the pantry is organized, and the stove is impeccable.
We had hoped that the mouse wandered in one day, and once the easy pickings on the counter were gone, it would be gone. A few mornings later we found its calling cards amongst our clean dishes, so we upped our cleaning routine again.
Now, we do the dishes immediately after every meal. At night, we dry them all, and clear off the counters completely. And last night we started setting traps. No success. My husband has set them again. This weekend we'll look for holes, and he'll plug those up.
No, it's not fun having a mouse (even if it is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it was on Friday morning). But, I have to admit, it's really nice having an incredibly clean kitchen.
