We very recently became suspicious that we were sharing our home against our will. It started Christmas Eve, when I thought that a Christmas miracle had happened and that the mister just decided to clean out and organize out kitchen cupboard. As it turned out, there was no miracle but the work of panic and paranoia. (And I appreciate acts of kindness done out of panic and paranoia JUST as much as normal ones.) The mister was almost certain that some sort of small rodent had leased our kitchen. The moving box tipped him off. While this is not uncommon for small rodent-type mammals to look for warmer digs in the winter, this is the first time we’ve had to deal with it. Now I could point out that all this happens after we lose Pez; however, Pez despised rodents. He was one hell of a bug catcher but he wanted nothing to do with rodents of any kind. He’d reluctantly feign interest if a mouse got into my dad’s house and I easily kept hamsters around him without worrying about him going after them. But, my mom pointed out that he could have kept mice away for merely looking like a cat.

My first instinct when hearing about a mouse in my home is to get another cat to patrol the area. I expected Juliet to at least hint around that something was amiss. What is the point of a hound nose if you can’t smell a hitch hiking mouse? Even so, I’m not ready for another cat, rodent transients or no.

The mister did lay down traps to catch the sneaky bugger, and this evening while we were in the other room we heard what turned out to be a caught mouse. I hate to say it, but I’ve always had a soft spot for mice — too many Disney movies I guess. So I was very sappy about letting the little guy have a happy free life in the nonexistent fields outside our house. In fact, if left long enough to ponder the mouse’s fate, I would have suggested taking him to a field somewhere where he could find mouse love and have a mouse family. Luckily my husband is around to remind me that rodents carry disease and pestilence and plague and hantavirus, so the mouse was summarily evicted. I’m pretty sure Juliet wanted to be friends with the mouse but that wouldn’t have been good for any one. Bella, on the other hand, couldn’t care less.

Despite my soft spot for potential Mickeys, I don’t like sharing my living space. In fact, a perfectly rational alternative to a cat or traps would have been to let the mouse just have the run of the place while we moved out. I’m trying to convince myself that the whole area is not a contaminated zone that needs to be nuked. But that would definitely help get mouse paw prints off my kitchen floor. Blegh. I am SO not looking forward to waking up to new captives in the traps, so I decided I will stay safely in my bed until I get the okay sign.