So, I was sitting on the toilet.
At 6:30 am this morning.
(Now, that’s a vision you can’t get out of your head, isn’t it???)
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement on the floor.
A mouse. Scurrying, following the wall line.
Headed right for the toilet.
And me.
Internally, I screamed.
My husband was on the other side of the wall behind me, sleeping. “Don’t wake him up!”
That thought literally went thru my head.
The fuck he’s not actually coming out of this incident awake.
As the mouse neared my ankles, I straightened my legs at the knees, and there I sat, suspended over the toilet bowl, wondering at what point could I safely put my feet back on the floor and scurry myself the hell out of the bathroom, to go wake up my husband.
Because, isn’t that what husbands are for???
I sat down softly next to him on the bed, and gently touched his shoulder.
“I’m up!” he said, popping awake.
“There’s a mouse in my bathroom!”
“I’m sure he’s gone by now…”
“But I don’t know where he went… and I’ve got to get ready!”
“Do you want to use my bathroom?”
“No! My stuff is all in mine…”
Together, we poked around my bathroom, but the culprit was hiding.
“What is he doing upstairs? There’s no food source up here…And how do I know that he didn’t disco dance on top of me while I was sleeping?”
My husband gave me a silent eye roll.
The fact of the matter is, we’ve lived here 12 years and mice have always been an issue.
On the day we closed on the house and the previous owner walked us thru the house, I spotted a mouse trap.
“What’s that all about?” I asked, having had bat issues in my previous home.
“Oh nothing…every five to 10 years, we get a mouse down here…no big deal…”
I was dubious.
Sure enough, every year, we either find evidence of mice or, we find the mice themselves.
(And yes, we’ve looked all over for holes, inside and out, and we’ve stuffed steel wool everywhere)
And still, there are mice.
A couple of years ago, my husband got up one morning and went to refresh the water in our dog’s bowl.
And there was a mouse. Floating. Looking like he was doing the backstroke, but the reality was: dead. Drown mouse.
My husband used to have a habit of leaving the top loading washing machine open. I asked him repeatedly to keep it closed.
One Saturday morning, I went to the basement to do laundry, looked in the washing machine and found…dead mouse.
Poor thing fell in and had no way out.
I screamed bloody murder.
It did not awaken the mouse from the dead.
It did, however, catch the attention of my husband on the second floor.
He now closes the top of the washing machine.
Apparently, the threat of divorce over an open washing machine and a dead mouse can scare a guy into submission.
This morning, I managed to get showered and ready for sailing, and my husband went to the basement and found some unused mouse traps, loaded them with peanut butter, and sent me on my way to sail for the day.
Mr. Mouse, your days are numbered…your days are numbered.
To Be Continued!
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