What Happens When It Snows - Part 1

The cold winter weather seems to drive warmth-seeking critters into our abode. Last November the bat of doom and destruction visited us. A couple of nights ago a little mouse couple invaded our home.

It had seemed a long day and all save myself were in bed asleep by nine o’clock. Being savagely tired but in need of a snack to fill a hole in my tummy, I went down into the kitchen to find something to eat. I took note as I entered the kitchen that our two cats were sitting and looking at their food dish; this generally means that they are starving due to negligence on our part; I peeked over and saw that their dish was full.

I proceeded to the refrigerator, put a small helping of leftover lasagna on a plate and stuck it in the microwave for one minute, after which I took my plate into the dining room. Maybe two minutes had passed from my entering the kitchen until my leaving it.

As I crossed the threshold into the dining room I noticed one of the cats batting a toy around in front of me. Seamus is a rather playful cat and to see him dashing about after the kids are asleep is pretty ordinary. What caught my attention was that his toy wasn’t making any noise. It didn’t smack when it hit the wall. It didn’t make a rolling sort of sound as it jostled around the floor.

Bending over to determine what the cat had found to play with, my hand began to reach for the object in question. Now, I didn’t have my glasses on and there is a questionably speckled Berber rug in our dining room/living room area. (Brown specked Berber is great for hiding stuff). What stopped my hand mid-reach was the tuft of white glaring back at me from the floor amidst the surrounding drab colors.

I followed the white tuft up and saw a little mousy chin; I followed the tuft down and spotted a small mousy tail. A dead mouse right outside my kitchen door was most certainly the very last thing I expected to see. We’ve never had to deal with mice before!

My poor husband was shouted out of his comfortable sleep, and told in no uncertain terms that he must rid our home of this mouse! He wandered about for a bit in a suddenly-awakened sort of stupor, but eventually the dead mouse was disposed of and the cat was sufficiently back-patted, and my husband went back to bed.

A few minutes after he had reached the land of sleep in his little sleep-sloop, there again came a suspicious clatter from the kitchen. Being on high alert I immediately betook myself to the culinary epicenter of the home. After a very short investigation I determined that there remained yet another rodent to be dealt with.