Mice are cute, huh? They have those teeny, tiny little paws and the sweet little whisters and the furry little bodies. Yeah, they sure are adorable... in cages. Or maybe as food for a larger animal. See, mice do not evoke much empathy from me. In fact, they tend to put me into histrionics. I practically jump onto dining room tables. Go ahead, laugh. Get your giggles in, but I know what mice are capable of. They can chew through almost anything, carry all sorts of diseases, run faster than a speading bullet, AND leave little pellets wherever they go. I think it's the pellets that truly disgust me.

Anyhow, we now have a mouse. I'm not sure how cute he is as I have only seen him twice, and without my glasses, at that.

The first time I saw him was out of the corner of my eye as he crawled into my kitchen through an opening in my kitchen window and then fell to the floor behind the kitchen trash can, which is only two feet tall, and the recycling basket. I let out a bit of a scream, more of a should I exclaim out of fear because I saw a something drop from my window or am I hallucinating since I don't have my glasses yet and my mind and body are playing tricks on me for not taking care of my eyes. So, I went to investigate, armed only with my voice as I stated out loud to no one in particular as no one, but myself was there,"I know that is NOT a mouse."

I repeated this a few more times as I inched my way across four feet of my tiled kitchen. Then, my courage kicked in and I moved the trash with my foot, jumped back, jumped forward, kicked the can again, just to jump back again. Nothing. So, just to be sure I knew what I was dealing with, I picked up the recycling basket and out scurried the dark furry thing, giving me my second fuzzy glimpse of my new friend and pal and causing me to jump back with a scream. Yes, I screamed, not once, not twice, but my signature three screams, during which the mouse ran into the living room and hid under my TV armoir.

Great, just great. Here I was, cleaning my house and preparing for a new (used, but new to me) sofa and loveseat, and a mouse has taken up residence. Nice. Wonderful. Great. And, to top it off, I could not calm down after pacing for five minutes in my kitchen, AWAY from the living room.
I grabbed the most useful tool I know of in a situation such as this: my cell phone. And, weilding it like the weapon it can be, promptly called my dad.

"Hello." He stated, knowing it was me. I could hear the laughter in his voice. See, I'm the daughter that gets the giggles, and knowing that he would laugh at my histrionics, but unable to contain myself I replied.

"Dad? There's a mouse in my house." My voice was a bit higher in pitch than normal.

"Honey, don't play with your food." He didn't bother hiding the laugher now. I just ignored it, knowing that I was giving him a great story to tell at the Thanksgiving Dinner Table with my future husband sitting there.

"Dad, really, it's a mouse. I'm scared. I don't like them. They are scary. What do I do?" As if he could come through the phone and get rid of the hairball. I roll my eyes at myself now.

"Well, you could feed it poison. Then it would die."

"But, Dad!" I almost whined, or maybe I did whine,"I hate dead things even more than I hate mice." I believe that I even stomped my foot at this.

"Well, honey, I can bring you some poison tonight that the mouse will take to his hole and share with all of his friends and family and it will kill them all away from your home."

"Okay. Okay, but only if you PROMISE they won't die in my house! Oh, that is sooo disgusting."

I don't think he really promised, but he did state yet again that the mouse would go back to his den and share the poison and die there.

So, my dad came, brought poison, we placed it in the spots my dad said the mouse would be exposed to it and there for eat it. Then, to celebrate, my father took us out to ice cream, otherwise known in the presence of children as B and R. And you know what, for a minute, I didn't even think about my new pet. All was good and clean and right in the creamy delisciousness of that ice cream. And I didn't so much mind sleeping alone in my home that night as my father drove off with my son, taking him to play with my nephew for a day. Maybe it was more of the exhaustion that the day's ruckus had caused, but I'd like to say that my father's poison so specially placed and the creamy ice cream allowed for a very peaceful and completely restful night, despite the rummagings, chewings, and poopings of the mouse.