That's not Mickey.

We're really loving the house that we're living in now.  It's been just incredible.  There are multiple rooms in the house where we can all 6 comfortably hang out together.  I forget sometimes that we have a large family by most standards... until it's been raining for a few days - then it all comes screeching back into focus.  

One of my favorite rooms is the laundry room.  It's HUGE - and it's mine.  Several days ago, I went in to get dog food, and when I picked up the bag a handful of kibbles and bits rolled across the floor.  Deep breath.  There's a rodent.  Upside?  No evidence of this rodent anywhere else in the house.  Downside?  RODENT.  

First step?  Denial.  It's a fluke!  I literally taped up the hole in the bag and told myself it was a fluke.  It was a friendly country mouse en route to visit his friend in the city who stopped in for a snack.  Surely he wouldn't be back.   

But he was.  The next morning there was another hole in the bag.  Of course.

I bought the sticky traps.  Deep down I knew that this was going to lead nowhere good.  There was really only ever one plausible conclusion and it included a panicked (and STICKY) wild animal, hysterical me, and at least one (probably 2!) child(ren) who wanted nothing more than to see what the ruckus was and then put it's hands in it's mouth.

I looked to the traditional traps, and I saw one thing.  SNAP.  Microscopic diseased blood splatters.  Think Dexter.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

This was one of those things that I was going to just have to power through.  I tossed the glue traps in the cart and left.

One night went by... no mouse.  Considered briefly baiting the traps, but the box said it would make the glue less effective.  I needed the most effective glue possible.  Considered briefly pouring extra glue on the traps.  Decided to just be thankful that I had put off my face to face with those beady black eyes for one more day.

Night two came and went.  No mouse.  Having found the silver lining the day before, I jumped directly to relieved.  

Sometime after lunch, I went into the laundry room and I heard it.  I heard the furious scritching of a mouse ... a BIG mouse trying to escape from a trap.  I couldn't even talk myself into getting onto the floor and putting my face in front of it.  I was afraid that the face of his oppressor might be the thing that gave him the adrenaline rush he needed to pry his body from the glue and jump on my face.  So I did what anyone would do...

I blindly snapped a picture and ran.

To be continued...