Of Mice And Men...And Guns?

The war on mice continues to wage at the Netherton residence.

A couple of weeks ago Ben and I were laid up on the couch watching a movie on the laptop.  We don't have a TV.  We're weird like that.  But the laptop works great for movies.  The only problem is that it isn't very loud, so when we watch movies in the living room we have to turn off the window unit so we can hear, and sometimes it gets a little warm for those of us who are pregnant.  Yes, we have window units.  No central heat and air in this joint.  Honestly I don't mind the big ugly units hanging from our windows.  I like the noise.  I like the cold air.  Its the ugliness I resent.  And the fact that I have to pin up my curtains so they don't hang over them.  It looks stupid.  I resent stupidity even more than I resent ugliness.  But you know, in the grand scheme of things I know it really doesn't matter.  In light of eternity, does it make one bit of difference that I have ugly window units and pinned-up curtains at my house?  No.  It does not matter.

Moving on.  Ben and I had our feet propped up on the coffee table, watching a movie and snuggling because we're in love like that, and Patience was already in bed so we had this blissful alone time.  So we were watching and snuggling, and I suddenly saw a mouse running along the baseboard in the living room and disappear behind the big white overstuffed chair in the corner.  The chair is where we used to sit together to watch movies before my belly got so big that we can't fit anymore. Then the mouse came out from behind the chair and ran along the other wall and disappeared behind the bookshelf.

I was very angry and couldn't even concentrate on the movie anymore.  The nerve of these stupid little rodents.  They're ruining my life.  I hate them with a passion.  We finished the movie, set mouse traps all over the living room, and I went to bed still fuming.  I fumed even more the next morning when we got up to find that we had not caught the mouse, even though we set four traps in the living room.

That reminds me of another mouse incident.  This happened awhile back.  Remember, we've been battling these beasts for years.  We had set a couple of traps in the kitchen before we went to bed because the mice had been leaving their evidence all over my kitchen.  Gross.  Me.  Out.  I'm mad right now just thinking about it.  Anyway, we went to bed and I was sleeping peacefully sometime during the middle of the night when Ben suddenly sat up in bed. 

I sat up too.  "What is it?"

"Shh."  He was listening.  "I think I heard something.  Stay here."

He reached for the shotgun he keeps by the bed and bolted from the room.

I laid back down and thought about how I wished I was pretty when I slept like people in movies.  Their hair always looks good and they never drool.  My hair is scary and big and I might drool a little sometimes.  Not fair.  Why was I thinking about that?  I got bored with my ridiculous thought process and went to find Ben.  Clearly I wasn't really concerned about whatever he thought he heard.

I wandered into the kitchen with my big, dishevelled hair.  Not sexy dishevelled, mind you.  Scary dishevelled.  I leaned in the doorway and watched my husband sneak around the dining room table in his underwear, pointing his shotgun hither and yon.  It was a very entertaining sight.  He reached the laundry room and slowly pushed the sliding door open with the barrel of the shotgun.

"Babe, what are you doing?"

He jumped when I spoke and whipped his head around.

"What are you doing in here?"  He barked.  "I told you to stay in bed!"

He was very tense.  I guess he really thought someone was in our house.  But my goodness, sometimes he acts like he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Only he didn't go to Vietnam,  Because he wasn't born yet.  Oh, and he's never been in the military.  He just acts like it sometimes.  Lets not think about what he would be like if he had been in the military and really did have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Oh, Lord.

I yawned.  "I know.  I just wondered where you were."

In all fairness, if there really was an intruder in our home and Ben was trying to neutralize the situation, I doubt if I would be an asset.  By the way, I didn't come up with the phrase "neutralize the situation" by
myself.  I've heard Ben say it.  I thought it sounded cool in this context.  But no, I would not be an asset.  I would probably collapse in hysterics under my big hair and be no help at all.  Well, that or I would attack the intruder with my iron skillet.  Either way would make things hard on Ben, who would be calmly neutralizing the situation with his gun.  No wonder he wanted me to stay in bed.

Ben was still poking around in the laundry room. 

"Babe,"  I yawned again and rubbed my eyes.  "I bet that's the noise you heard."  I pointed to a mostly dead mouse still flopping around in the trap on the kitchen floor.

Ben hurried into the kitchen. 

"Oh."  He lowered his weapon.  "I didn't even see that."

"Probably because you don't have your glasses on," I pointed out.  "If it was a real intruder how would see to shoot them without your glasses?"

"Instinct, Babe."  He handed me the shotgun and knelt to pick up the mouse.  In his underwear.

Instinct.  Of course. 

I carried the shotgun back to the bedroom, he followed and we went back to bed.  Situation neutralized.

So last week we were again watching a movie in the living room on the laptop.  The window unit was turned off and I was feeling a little sweaty, partly because Patience was still up and wallering all over me, but I was still enjoying eating a popsicle and watching Tom Hanks in Appollo 13. 

I was enjoying it, that is, until I saw a mouse scurry along the baseboard and disappear behind the white chair.  Ben saw it too and paused the movie.  We watched the mouse come out from behind the white chair and just hang out kind of behind the rocking chair, but within plain view.  He was just THERE, sniffing his disgusting little whiskered nose all over my floor.

"Great!"  I said.  "Now they want to come out and watch movies with us!  That's wonderful, just wonderful!"  I was so angry.  I think my blood pressure was up a little.

When I spoke the mouse jumped and dove behind the bookshelf.  Ben sat and pondered for a moment, then glanced at me sideways.  There was a strange gleam in his green eyes. 

"Babe, what if I load the .22 with ratshot and we scare it out and shoot it?"

Now we're shooting guns in the house.  Interesting.

I shrugged.  "Sure, if you want to try."  I guess I thought he wouldn't really get a shot at the mouse.  I should have known better.

He got up.  "Stay here and watch the bookshelf.  Tell me if it comes out."

He went down the hall and heard him rummaging around in the safe and the gun cabinet.  Patience tried to get down off the couch and I distracted her by giving her Ben's empty popsicle wrapper.  She started wrapping it around her feet.  What, is she Chinese and wants to start binding her feel?  With plastic popsicle wrappers?  She's a weird kid.  But hey, she was having fun, the mouse was apparently still behind the bookshelf, and Ben was ready with his .22.

"Okay, Babe.  Come slowly pull the drawers out.  I think he's back there."

Our bookshelf has two little drawers on the very bottom.  I keep my table linens in them.  Don't ask why I keep my table linens in the living room.  It just works. 

I pulled a drawer out and immediately saw that those blankety blank little idiots had chewed through one of my table cloths.  My blood pressure went up a little more.

Everything happened really fast after that. 

I pulled the other drawer out, Ben yelled at me to get back, I jumped back, there was a gunshot, and a mouse lay twitching and quivering on the floor. 

Patience stood up on the couch and screamed with delight.  "Daddy!  Shoot!  Floor!"  She pointed and laughed hysterically and jumped on the couch clutching her plastic popsicle wrappers.  I vaguely remember thinking that she isn't supposed to jump on the furniture.  I'm sorry to say I took no disciplinary action that night.  I was still looking at my chewed up table cloth and the dead mouse on the floor.

And the nice little damaged place on our pretty antique wood floors.

Ben knelt down and felt the floor.  "I guess that ratshot chewed the floor up pretty good.  I didn't think it was supposed to do that."

I shook myself out of my stupor, picked up my ruined table cloth and shoved the drawers back in the bookshelf.  "Oh, well, don't worry about it.  Its under the bookshelf.  No one will ever know."

Except that now I've posted it on the Internet for all the world to see.

Ben disposed of the dead mouse and put away his gun while I gave Patience another popsicle wrapper to wrap her feet in.  Then we settled back down to watch Tom Hanks get his crew back to planet Earth. 

Somehow I had trouble focusing.