Got Mice?

Since Chief was nice enough to gift me an "LOL Award" for having a funny blog I thought I should post something better than my last post where my brother is being a loon.

I appreciate your comments on that post very much and didn't realize there are a lot of clones running around in this world that resemble my brother.  I feel for you.  We all need to get together and have a "World Appreciation for Nutcase Family Member Day."  Or in most of our cases we can just call it "My Sibling Rewrote History. Yours?"

Don't. Just don't go in the grey house.

Anyhoodle - Pooldad and I were talking about funny stuff the other day and we recalled this story.  It still makes my sides hurt thinking about it.


The first home Pooldad and I owned together was a brand new home that we were the first to occupy.  It was a lovely, big home located next to a wide open field.  We called the field the "common area."  The kids could play there - it was safe and within eyesight of the house.


Unfortunately the common area was owned by the local power company and they were responsible for mowing it and maintaining it.  I say unfortunately because they never took care of it. Never mowed it - never so much as looked at it.  The grass was taller then my 6 year old son.


Enter the mice.  Lotsa' mice.


The winter came and the mice decided it would be a good deal to take up residence in our home.  I wouldn't have had such a problem with them if the understood the one tenet of being a "house pet" - do your business outside.  These mice [as they tend to be] were poopers - I could not stand the mice poopies all over the house and it was driving me bananas.


We tried snap traps. 
Nope.
We tried catching them by hand. 
[stop laughing]
We had a dog and TWO cats.
Losers. 
Although the dog DID get stuck in the couch trying to kill one. 
He got props for that.


We tried everything.


Nothing.


Until someone suggested we try sticky traps.  Basically they are pieces of paper with a high density sticky surface.  When the mouse steps on it they stick.  They don't die - humane y'know - but [as you will come to see] it REALLY pisses them off and you go in, pick up the trap, extricate the rodent and throw it out the door with an "Adios!" and hope they don't come back.


Doesn't really work as the package says tho'.


The first night we laid the traps down [we followed the poop trail and placed them accordingly] I awoke to a very loud "eeek, eeek, eeek" coming from our master bathroom linen closet. I nudged Pooldad and said "Honey! Honey!  There is a mouse."  He didn't move.  So I hit him and whispered, really loud, in his ear "GET UP! There is a MOUSE  making a helluva lotta noise in the bathroom."  I must have smacked him hard enough because that got his attention.


He stumbled into the bathroom, opened the closet and exited with one little mouse stuck to the trap. The thing was screaming [as only mice can do,  I suppose] while my husband walked out the bedroom door to dispose of Mr. Mickey.


This is where I should point out that not only was it winter, but my husband was wearing boxer shorts. 


Only boxer shorts.


And was half asleep.


I followed him and saw him go outside to the common area.  I watched as he tried to pull the mouse off of the sticky paper.  


Tug-pull-curse-tug-tug-pull-curse.  Repeat.


No dice.


Still carrying the mouse on the paper, dressed in underwear [and by now, I am sure, freezing] he marched back into the house and grabbed a butter knife.


I stood in the foyer [being very dutiful you know] and watched him slam back out the door and attempt to PRY the mouse off the paper with a dull knife, in the moonlight, the whole while cursing the invention of sticky paper mouse traps.


Finally, after minutes of trying to pop the mouse off of the sticky paper, he gave up and FLUNG the paper, mouse and all, into the common area.  It landed upside down, on top of very high grass, with the mouse's feet stuck to the paper and just hanging there.  


It still hadn't fallen off.  giggle.


He just looked at the mouse, hung up 4 feet off the ground, squeaking loudly, mumbled a few expletives and returned to bed.


The best part is we went out the next morning and found the sticky paper in the same position as the night before with NO mouse adhered to it.


We repeated the process for two more nights [sans butter knife but with the addition of shoes and a coat for Pooldad] and simply frisbeed the mice out into the hinterlands, stuck to the paper.  


They stopped coming into the house after that.


It was like they KNEW crazy people with A LOT of glue lived in the grey house and they all got together and decided "Oh HELL no - don't go in THERE.  Didn't you hear what happened to Bob, Sally and George?"


I still laugh. heehee