My nemesis

They say bad things come in threes. I find this puzzling in light of the most recent circumstances on the home front. We captured a third little mouse last night. The trap was very unkind to this unfortunate creature...or so Kris told me. With small shrieks of panic and anxiety, I disposed of the first two, all by myself! When we heard the trap last night and saw the rodent's futile attempts to break free I told my husband "You can get that one." I'd had my fill.

Unfortunately for him, the mouse's struggles caused a small mess that I had no intention of looking at, let alone cleaning! But Kris stepped up and saved me, and with our third mouse properly evacuated from our home, I tried to tell myself that three was it. Notice, I said TRIED. I'm a paranoid pessimist, so I pretty much assume there are at least 5 other mice breeding underneath my dishwasher. But there was that small shred of optimism, of hope, in me that they-those bad things I referenced in the beginning-were all done. Afraid not. Sometime during the night I heard our last remaining trap sound its glorious, beautiful music. We had been asleep but I don't sleep well or deeply so I heard it snap, said "Kris did you hear that?", he mumbled "yeah" and back to sleep we went. I awoke to find the trap flipped over. There was no immediate assurance that a mouse had indeed fallen prey, but rushing around to get out the door by 7am, I hoped for the best before telling Kris "I love you. Bye. Oh and there's a mouse in the trap for you!"

He called me after he got up to ask if I had actually seen a mouse in the trap. I told him I had not. I didn't even turn the kitchen light on. I just knew the trap had been flipped over and to be honest, I'd had it up to "here" (imagine me standing with my hand drawing a line 2 feet above my head) with mice. I did not want to start out my morning with visions of a dead rodent. You know? Kris told me that there was NO mouse in the trap. So mouse #4 is still out there. I REALLY hope it was the deranged mother mouse. You know, the one that doesn't care about her children? She has sent three of them out to die, with no regard for them at all. Granted, if she is under there creating more babies each day, I suppose she can afford to lose two or three. BUT...I have four and even on my rough days, I can't imagine sending one or two of them out, never to return. I have lost ALL respect for this mouse, as a mother.

The reason I think (HOPE) mouse #4 is the mother, and mastermind (not to mention completely unrealistically infertile now!) is because it was obviously near/on the trap because it managed to spring the trap without getting caught. And this is not the first time that has happened. Her babies are idiots. She, however, is not. If I could just lure her out. Have a chat. A little heart to heart. From one crazy mother to another. I could just explain to her that this is MY home. My kids don't get in her kids' beds and she needs to keep hers out of mine. And then, I could do as my friend Derek suggested the other day: "If you're feeling particularly vengeful, you could just strangle the thing and look it in the eye while you do it...so it KNOWS the score." Yeah, that's exactly what I'd like to do! Well put Derek!

Sigh...

Kris is talking about getting rat poisoning. Our kids are old enough that they won't get into it. We'd put it in areas they wouldn't go. We have had so many suggestions and some really great advice. Someone mentioned calling an exterminator. This of course is my first choice, but it's expensive and Kris wants to try a few other options first. Being that he hasn't suffered from anxiety and panic attacks, he can't really understand what these mice are doing to me. I'm scared to be in my own home. Not because I am afraid of the mice themselves. But I'm constantly on edge. I never know when one will run across my foot. EWW! I don't know if they are getting into the food. I constantly inspect everything. Because I know they are rooming somewhere under the dishwasher (though it could be in the basement), I hate being in my kitchen. This makes cooking difficult. Let's face it. It makes cooking almost non-existent. It takes sheer willpower for me to move through my house. And there is no way I'm even going in my basement, for fear that they have a huge nest somewhere down in my laundry room. Kris insists he has been down there and hasn't seen any, but my overactive imagination is WAY beyond that at this point. And it's not just my kitchen I can't stand being in. I'm tense and jumpy being anywhere in my house. Last night while laying in bed, I felt something move across my neck (we had the fan on in our room so I'm SURE it was just a stray hair) but immediately I started envisioning scenarios where there were mice running across my body while I slept. These mice are really NOT helping my current non-medicated mental state.