The Mouse

It was a traumatic week. Or at least some high lights were. So two days before my birthday, we discover we have a mouse, or at least that we had one. We weren't sure if it came and left until a couple days later, I was sure it was still around and it FREAKED ME OUT. I had noticed a couple spots it had sneaked under the door, because the carpet was all smashed down like something had SQUEEZED through and I figured it was the disgusting mouse. I roughed up the carpet so it would all stand up again and woke up to see the same spot smashed down again. ICK!!!! The mouse was still around. The day passed and I meant to get traps, but it ended up not happening. I was mad at myself, but decided I could live with a mouse one more day. UNTIL . . . Greg's at work, so I'm all alone. It's almost midnight and I just lay down to sleep. I'm in the dark. A few moments pass and I hear the quietest . . . scratch, scratch, scratch. My eyes immediately open and I'm frozen. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Ever so quiet, I'm not even sure where it's coming from. I sit up and turn on the lights. It stops. Was it in my head? Maybe it was. I turn out the light and lay down again. Ten minutes pass in the dark. Scratch, scratch, scratch. This time I listen awhile to be SURE. I've lived in this house two years now. I know the noises it makes. This is a noise I've never heard before. Gross. This thing is in my room. So I keep quiet, trying to figure out where this thing is. It's so quiet it's hard to tell. But I'm freaking out. I have an opportunity to kill this thing. I know it's somewhere in my room. But I don't want to kill it! I don't even want to see it! Why isn't Greg here?! Why does this have to happen when he's gone! I'd feel so much braver in a team! I want to ignore it and pretend like it's not there but it felt so irresponsible to me. And then I would know I just let it get away. I look all over the room, but kind of ignore my night stand because I'm pretty afraid of it. I look in every other drawer, under and around everything and NOTHING. I'm so frustrated, but almost relieved. I try to sleep ONE MORE TIME and it all happens again. This time it sounds like it's right by my face! The whole thing is just freaking me out. So I decide, it MUST be in the night stand. I sit there in bed preparing myself. By this time it's 12:20 am. I'm thinking, "Well if I see this thing, how am I going to kill it?" There are some heavy weights in the room so I grab one and set it near me. My heart is racing and I literally feel like I'm going to vomit. I'm literally just sitting in my room in panic, waiting for courage. I kneel on the ground, facing my night stand. I know it's in there. I open a drawer enough to see inside and it's not there. Then I pull it completely out, really fast. Not there. Ok, time for the lower drawer. Same thing. Meanwhile I'm setting a drawer close by for smashing purposes. Ok, it must be completely underneath. I gain my courage and flip the whole thing over. Nothing. Now I'm just frustrated. I have no idea where this thing is. I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's just in the walls by the head of my bed. So I put the stand back together and I think I try to sleep in there one more time, but I hear the noise again and bolt to the living room and try to sleep in there. I was so freaked by the whole thing I can't really sleep at all. What if this thing comes out and scurries up the couch onto my blanket? Greg doesn't get home 'till around 3am and I tell him everything and can't believe how much sleep I'm missing, knowing Scarlet is going to wake up in 5 hours. I think it was 3:30 by the time we both went to bed. I felt braver with Greg in the room. I couldn't believe what a SCARDY PANTS I'd become. I was feeling so brave when all this started.

Next day I go get the traps. I set them and we wait a couple days. I bait them and set them in 3 spots- one of them the night stand. Well one night goes by and nothing. Second night, I make Greg go look at the night stand and the almond butter is COMPLETELY LICKED OFF, but no mouse and the trap hadn't gone off. The last two days I was so afraid to walk on the floor and when that happened I just got MAD. I was like, "Oh mousey, it's on! You are going to die this week!" I couldn't believe I'd been outwitted by a mouse! Well, back up a bit before I even bought the traps. I looked up online if Target even had them. I didn't want to waste the drive if they didn't. Well, as I was looking all these ZAPPER traps popped up. Little boxes that the mouse climbs in and then it's electrocuted. Crazy. I thought the idea sounded wild and the one that popped up was really expensive. So after the mouse didn't get caught we wondered if we had a smart mouse that would need more of an effort, so Greg starts looking online at all these zap traps. Before we know it he's reading me nonstop reviews of everyone's mouse problems and how the zapper solved them all. As much as everyone was raving about it, they had the most horrific stories of infestation. The whole thing grossed me out SO BAD. It had me thinking, "How many mice DO we have? I thought we only had one." So we move a trap into the bathroom, right by the door where it had been sneaking by. Well, 3 am rolls around and it's become a nightly ritual for me to pee in the middle of the night. I wake up. I am terrified to step on the ground. I don't want to step on the mouse. I don't want to step where it has stepped. I don't want to see it if it's dead. I think I laid there for 30 minutes before I realized I'm never going to sleep again if I don't pee. I VERY slowly walk to the door. I crack it open, ever so slowly and peek down at the trap. There it is, a dead little mouse, all clean and still. It gave me the heebee geebees but I kept looking at it. I was a little afraid to go in. I wake up Greg by saying, "We got the mouse!" Or something like that. It took me a minute or so, but I finally just walked by it to go pee and back again. It was weird.

We were all set on getting one of those zappers but then we got it. We've had other traps set out for 4 days now and caught nothing so I think that's it! HOORAH!!! I'm finally feeling comfortable again. The whole thing was gross. Don't worry, if we get a mouse in the future I won't blog about it. But it was a first, it was an experience, so in the blog it went.