A Mouse In the House

My experience is that there is nothing more dangerous for a man than a mouse in the house. Last evening, I returned from the regular Tuesday Stray Bar WIne club and was immediately confronted by Lovely to inform me of an intruder. It is Fall in the Midwest, and the temperature often drops below freezing at night. The vast network of wild creatures seek comfort in the heat. The frogs sink to the bottom of the pump well, where the water is warmest, and often, they get swallowed by the pump—a rather macabre way to die. Birds seek the comfort of dense shrubs and trees like Juniper Pfizer or pine, and mice seek refuge in loosely piled leaves or wood piles. Except there is an occasional mouse that takes the easy way out, he finds a tiny opening in the structure of a house. If the opening enters the interior unobstructed, warm air blows out of the hole and signals a clear path to a comfy winter. One of the attributes that God has given the mouse is the ability to squeeze through tiny openings much smaller than their bodies. Young mice, just born a few months ago, have little bodies. Combine that small size with a powerful desire to get warm gives them the urge to wriggle through that speck of an opening.

Hundreds of cartoons show a woman standing on a chair and shrieking, “Eek, it’s a mouse.” I have seen a fair share of these cartoons, and because they are so common, my correlation of women becoming dangerous when sighting such a creature in her domain is valid. Such was the state of mind when Lovely announced her plight to me last evening. She didn’t say hi, or hello dear, or how was the meeting? No, she said, “there is a mouse in the house. Go downstairs and trap it.” In my semi-drunken stupor, I put it to rest by saying, “I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” and that really made her dangerous.

Now, it is the tomorrow I promised to take care of the monster mouse problem, and here I sit writing an account about it and thinking I had better get my ass in gear to go hunting. Most men would take a wife’s demand that he go hunting as a sign of affection, but I am a bit Leary of that line of thought. I do believe I had better take care of the matter, and soon.

Sleeping With the Enemy

The Wabbits formed a secret alliance with the mice, and took Grumpa Joe by surprise. A battalion of field mice infiltrated Grumpa’s castle. The little creatures burrowed into the insulation under the bay window, and wintered there. Grumpa suspected the mice had infiltrated the castle walls, but had no concrete evidence.

Today, another surprise invasion took place. An army of carpenter ants broke through the walls. Before breakfast, Grandma Peggy, unaware that the ants had allied themselves with the Wabbits, began taking them down.

Grumpa Joe dislikes ants as much as he does the Wabbits. He began a search and destroy mission to find the carpenters. Following their tracks down to the castle dungeon, he came about a cluster of bodies. A spider ambushed the ants, and snared them in his net. The ants became spider food. Looking up, Grumpa Joe noticed a tunnel in the insulation under the bay window. His focus shifted from ants to mice.

Using a ladder and flashlight, Grumpa Joe immediately determined that a battalion of mice camped in the insulation during the winter. He plans a new mission to find the breech in the fortress walls. In the meantime, he spread a chemical repellant to deter the ants.

While Grumpa Joe fought with the ants, and cleaned up the mouse nest, the Wabbits snuck around his flank, and took out his geranium.