Mousey Mousey

I hesitate to make this public because my mom just decided to come and visit in a couple of weeks and she will probably cancel her trip when she hears of this.

We have a mouse.

Of course we don't have a mouse, we probably have a family of mice, but it is comforting to imagine just one little Stuart Little inhabiting a cozy (did you hear that Mom, cozy, they're cozy!) little mouse hole somewhere. But I'd be naive to think that and you'd be deranged to believe it. The problem is that now that I have admitted to a mouse in my house, my mom has multiplied this number in her imagination to 100 and she's not even read to the end of the blog.

Mice are common in Jamaica Plain. They come in when it gets cold. Each year they appear and then I go on the offensive, their droppings disappear, and I am satisfied that they are gone and we move on. I have plugged holes with steel wool, I have stuffed poison into all sorts of nooks and crannies, and I have used the dreaded glue traps to catch a few furry fellows.

Our food is secure. The mice over the last three winters have not been as bold as the first winter. In the winter of 1999-2000, the mice chewed into chip bags and oatmeal cylinders and pretty much seized our pantry. We fought back. Now all of our carb reserves (matzo, cereals, pasta, rice, etc.) are in the food safe, a huge plastic container with a metal latch. No one's getting in there.

The thing is I hate mice as much if not more than my mother. In the winter each time something blows against the window, the VCR clicks, or a piece of paper uncrinkles my heart skips a beat. I clap my hands three times before I walk into the kitchen and rush through it anytime past 9:30PM (which is the well-known hour when mice begin to dash about).

Since I graduated from high school and left home, all but two of the seven places I have lived have had a mouse problem. In three of those places I never saw evidence of mice in my room or apartment, but they were there in the walls, in other people's places. I should be used to this.

Phil takes it all in stride. He thinks I am overreacting. He claims that these pests just don't bother him. I'm not kidding. For a long time I thought that he just didn't believe me that we had a mouse family living with us, but just last week he admitted to seeing one. Big-deal-so-what is his attitude. I think he'd probably like to set up a little water dish and food bowl for them under the stove and give them names. The more hyped up I get, the cooler he becomes.

So I've already put some poison out this winter, but tonight I am getting more aggressive. I have set out four glue traps. Last year we learned a new glue trap trick. The common practice is to put glue traps under things and behind things. Not in our house. A friend advised us to put them wherever we've seen them, right out in the open. I just did that.

Now I am waiting and blogging and I am scared, really scared that I actually might catch one.