Scratch, scratch, scratch...as I lay in my bed, I keep hearing sounds....not loud bangs and thumps, more quiet and subdued. But in my heart I know....there is a mouse in my closet!
He is either in a box wanting to get out, or on the outside trying to get in. Either way, he is not welcome. If he would have just gone about his business without making a sound (quiet as a mouse?), I wouldn't have known he was there, and wouldn't be planning his demise.
Now, I don't generally have food in my bedroom closet, so will assume that he is planning to scamper into the kitchen later on tonight...or possibly my computer room! Both places are guaranteed to have pieces of popcorn scattered around the floor....except for the ones that Fred the Dog found before I went to bed. Fred the Dog is great at cleaning floors....he finds all sorts of goodies on my computer room floor...I like to nibble as I type...and I'm sloppy.
I poke my husband to wake him up..."there's a mouse in the closet"....
"Hmmmm" as he rolled over the other way.
"I SAID THERE IS A MOUSE IN THE CLOSET"
At 2 AM I suppose I shouldn't have expected him to immediately get up and look for a mousetrap. But it was worth a try.
Oh well, I know how to set a mousetrap. So I climbed out of bed, put on my slippers and padded my way downstairs. I was greeted by Fred the Dog and Kuper the Keezie, both of whom prefer to sleep downstairs in the family room......they have heard my husband snore and know that distance is the only way to sleep undisturbed.
"Hi guys, guess what, there's a mouse in the closet"....neither dog was impressed and didn't bother to get up, although they did wag their tails. The mousetraps were in a drawer in the laundry room......when we first moved here, we bought them by the dozen. This was a newly established development and the field mice had no place to go.....what could be better than relocating to a nice, warm, cozy house. I think we caught 27 of them that first year.
Getting back to my mouse in the closet....I piled a gob of peanut butter onto the little latch thingy and went back to the bedroom. Husband was still snoring happily.
I set the trap, thanks to the 27 opportunities I had last year, I was a pro at it. The trap was carefully positioned near the closet door but not where "someone" would step on it on his way to the bathroom. That would have been a definite mistake. Then I went to bed....knowing that tomorrow, I will probably have to attend a mouse funeral.
Wrong....when I woke up and peeked over the back of the bed, the mousetrap was sitting there but no mouse. Disappointment and relief...I really don't like attending mouse funerals.
This went on for a few more days...each night I would position the mousetrip with a FRESH gob of peanut butter. Each morning there it sat, undisturbed.
But finally, hunger or curiousity got the better of him.
The mouse in the closet is gone.....sent away in a little box to be picked up and delivered to his final resting place...the city landfill.
A Mouse in My Closet
