Another Day in the Country
A mouse in the house
© Another Day in the Country
Jess and Jana finally finished the manual-labor part of a cleaning frenzy at my house. That completed, it became my job to decide what would go back into each pristine, clean, room.
Would I clutter things up again or keep things sparse? Would I put area rugs back down on the lilywhite carpet? Would I maximize my living space with treasures or keep it spare?
This was the most difficult part of the cleaning spree as far as I was concerned. There was stuff everywhere!
I opted for minimum artifacts and carpets uncovered, and I am continually amazed at — and enjoying — the clean lines of my living space.
Later, we were sitting at the kitchen table, playing yet another game, when my ever-alert grandson said, “I just saw something scurry across the living room. It might have been a rodent!”
We all were startled. Then, we laughed at his choice of words. “Scurry”? “Rodent”? He’d been working on advanced English topics too long this summer.
Then we all saw it: a little, brown field mouse, scampering across the living room carpet.
My daughter was in immediate pursuit, gaining on the mouse as it headed for a closet, trying to get traction on linoleum.
Jana pounced as the mouse slid through a crack under the hall closet door.
“Did you see him doing the Tokyo Drift?” Jana laughed.
At this point, I’d get a broom, but not Jana, the mouse-hunter. She’s had lots of experience at our home in the California hills, where field mice always find a place to get in. She knows what havoc they create.
She sets traps for clandestine mice. But when they are visible, she’s been known to catch them in her bare hands and have them thrown out the front door before you catch your breath.
We put up barriers around the closet, and Jana went in.
I grimaced because the hall closet was one of those spots the cleaners had ignored. All my housekeeping sins would be revealed in my favorite spot to store winter clothes.
Out came the boots, then the mittens, hats, mufflers, and umbrellas, all on the newly polished hall floor.
There also was a pellet gun, a giant Frisbee, and a kid’s bowling set but no mouse. Jana even went through the pockets of all the coats.
Cautiously backing off for a minute, we watched in silence. Sure enough, here came that mouse, making a run for the other end of the house.
Jana went in hot pursuit.
Obviously, this little critter had cased the joint. When he got onto the carpet, he had traction and headed for the hall bathroom.
Jana slammed the door shut behind her.
“Put something in front of the door,” she called from inside the bathroom. “I think I’ve got him isolated.”
We all listened outside the door as the chase continued in a rather small space.
“He got past me into where the hot water tank is,” Jana said. “Get me a trap, and we’ll bait it with peanut butter and bacon. Mice can’t resist it.”
Ten minutes later, the critter was locked in the utility closet (we hoped), complete with baited trap, and we were back to playing games.
By bedtime, the trap still was empty, but I’d also put some mouse poison in the pantry, just in case.
The next morning was my birthday. The house still was quiet when I woke up, got out of bed, and received my first gift of the day — other than family still snuggled in their beds who would be celebrating with me.
There on my bedroom floor was one dead mouse. I picked him up and flushed him down the toilet.
The next day, my mouse catchers went back to California. The trap in the hall bathroom was still un-sprung. However, I’m leaving it in place because maybe there’s more than one mouse in the house.
Perhaps you know how it is when you see your grown children and also remember them at 6 or 16?
That’s how I was seeing my daughter as she took off to catch the mouse.
Almost 50 years ago, I pulled open the kitchen junk drawer in our home in California, and there sat a little mouse with a nest full of babies.
What to do? I didn’t want to touch them.
The first thing I thought of was our cat, Hutton, who was an intrepid mouse hunter.
I called to the cat and picked her up, slid open the drawer, and showed her the mice, just as my first grader came around the corner into the kitchen and saw what was about to happen.
“Hutton!” she screamed, grabbing at the cat. “Don’t you dare!”
She tossed the cat to the floor.
Of course, the mother mouse scurried away, and I was left with an indignant child, a bewildered cat, and a nest full of newborn rodents.
My daughter and I compromised. We put the cat in the garage for a couple of hours, left the sliding door open, and put the nest full of baby mice in a corner of an outside deck so the mother could move them if she had a mind to.
I don’t remember the outcome, but I do remember that it was an attempt to be kind to creatures we spend life with on another day in the country.